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Do Not Trust Journalists – A Mormon Example

198 points by barry-cotter 7y ago

rectang 7y ago
Left unsaid: whether you should trust journalists you consider your political allies.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Only if you have them on the hook for a longer engagement. I joke that if you want to understand an issue, the local paper is great for eliminating reasons. They never tell the whole story and are rarely interested in it. Talking to a journalist is like talking to the police. They have a specific agenda and standard for publishing that doesn’t necessarily align with telling a story as you perceive it. You have to be able to manipulate them, which is best left to professionals.
  - dwater 7y ago
    That was my experience. I once talked to a newspaper reporter for 20 minutes and he used maybe a 10 word quote that I felt did not represent the point of what I had explained to him. I would not speak to a reporter unprepared again.
  - btilly 7y ago
    Talking to a journalist is like talking to the police. They have a specific agenda and standard for publishing that doesn’t necessarily align with telling a story as you perceive it. You have to be able to manipulate them, which is best left to professionals. A lesson that I have seen learned the hard way. The reason why celebrities say "No comment" is that it can't be misquoted. My favorite example of a deliberate journalistic misquote is that my mother was on a phone with a journalist and used a phrase starting with, "It is not that I..." It appeared in print as, "It is...that I..." Yes, the word "not" was replaced with "..." to reverse the meaning of what she said so that she would look bad.
akersten 7y ago
Flagging for classic whataboutism and whining that the NYT does not serve as a mouthpiece of the LDS. > Will the New York Times ever tell this story—the story of a people, of a faith, of a life that has changed millions through decisions small and large made over the last sixty years? They will not.
- dang 7y ago
  Please keep reflexive tropes like "whataboutism" off this site. They don't add information and count as name-calling in the sense that we use the term here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. See also the bit about shallow dismissals. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20whataboutism&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
anigbrowl 7y ago
The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins humorously imagined the same treatment being given to other members of America’s recently deceased: “Hugh Hefner, the Playboy founder who rebuffed demands that he stop publishing a misogynistic pornographic magazine and exploiting young women, died at 91." That would be an equally legitimate take.
- Animats 7y ago
  If he'd lived two more years, he probably would have had obituaries like that. The Guardian did give him a obit like that. "The man who created Playboy, who has died aged 91, has been remembered as an American icon – but others recall a controlling, emotionally abusive manipulator"[1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/28/hugh-hefner-playboy-founder-91-dark-side https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/28/hugh-hefner-pl...
- briandear 7y ago
  But a take they didn’t chose to take, that’s the point.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    The author appears to have missed the takes that were actually that (Guardian was one).
    - TomMckenny 7y ago
      He missed quite a few: but of course the author is not writing to inform but shape opinion of a religious leader.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    It's not very meaningful. The article is saying you can't trust journalists in general because one of them had a take he disliked about a person he admired. The existence of a more gentle take about someone else on tells you about the editorial view of one writer or one editor at one outlet. It doesn't establish some sort of standard to which all other obituaries must adhere.
btilly 7y ago
I voted for it because it describes a real problem with journalism as it is practiced today. Journalists focus on the most attention grabbing tidbit that comes to mind from recent events. They do not attempt to get context on it. And do not attempt to inform. Then when it becomes clear that they have screwed up, they double down on their position because they are important people. They are journalists, and therefore they are right. At least in their own mind. But I have never seen journalists report accurately on any story that I knew well. And their failure to even attempt it causes great harm to the American public. Now about the subject in question, as an atheist I oppose the LDS and all it stands for. However this was a man who made a tremendous impact within the Church and around the world. While conservative by today's standards, he was relatively progressive compared to society for most of his life. Even while I dislike his work against gay marriage, I still applaud his work in rooting racism out of Mormon theology. And hearing about his real life accomplishments has left me more informed.
- kick 7y ago
  But I have never seen journalists report accurately on any story that I knew well. And their failure to even attempt it causes great harm to the American public. What publications do you read? For a random example off the top of my head, I've found that Glenn Greenwald's reporting is exceptional on topics I know well.
  - btilly 7y ago
    You are right, I overstated the case. My impression is that Glenn Greenwald's reporting is indeed excellent. However my knowledge of secret surveillance is from the writings of people like him - it is not a subject that I have independent knowledge that I can verify anything from. Furthermore at this point I would consider him more of a subject matter expert than a general journalist. Reporting on the same topics in CNN or the NYT tends to be pretty shoddy. That said, there are some publications, such as Propublica and The Economist that seem to consistently do a good job of reporting. So it is not all. But it is a lot. That said, I was basing my comments on my personal expertise on programming, math, physics and a handful of celebrities that I happen to know personally. Reporting on all of those is pretty uniformly terrible.
dang 7y ago
All: there's a decent debate about journalism to be had here. Please keep the comments substantive and within the site guidelines—no flamebait or flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
finnthehuman 7y ago
The LDS church is interesting in that it simultaneously large enough and insular enough to make stark differences in journalistic angles sharp. Journalism often falls into a trap that puts the cart before the horse. It's preordained [no pun intended] what type of coverage many events are going to get. Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? A journo doesn't go into something to figure out "what's the deal with [foo]?" That won't sell (not to the public, nor their editors). But the reality is often worse. Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats. edit: I'm editing out an already-vague story about being involved with something that receives media coverage. I'll just say if you notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter you're a unrelated professional in, being the "who" in receiving end of news coverage lets you see just how much they want to draw conclusions for the rest of the world unless you work on visibility to counter their obvious narrative angles. And the worst thing is, once this is the game it doesn't matter how right or wrong they are because organizations are going to fight negative coverage either way.
- closed 7y ago
  > Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? Their obit for the previous president, Gordan B Hinckley is quite positive... https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html Edit: here are more if people are curious. One before, and one after the Mormon church allowed black people similar position as non-black people. They're still pretty upbeat. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mormon-leader-is-dead-at-96-david-mckay-mormon.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mo... https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon-chief-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon...
  - simple_phrases 7y ago
    There's a certain irony in the OP accusing journalists of starting with a premise and working backwards, when the OP did it themself.
leftyted 7y ago
It's not what's "the most attention grabbing tidbit" -- that's what tabloids do. It's ideological. As the piece says: > [The journalist] forced events and personalities into a narrow, pre-conceived frame that bore little relation to the reality before him Same thing as the NYT publishing an article about how the space program was about white supremacy. Same thing as the Times' 1619 project, which alleged that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the colonies. Being a journalist is hard. Too many journalists seem to believe that "it's impossible to be apolitical" or "if you aren't working to dismantle the system, you're part of the problem" or even "no facts, only interpretations". These perspectives aren't necessarily wrong, but you can't be a good journalist if you've internalized them.
- ivanbakel 7y ago
  >These perspectives aren't necessarily wrong, but you can't be a good journalist if you've internalized them. In what way can both of those things hold? If the perspectives aren't wrong, what bearing do they have on good journalism?
  - leftyted 7y ago
    Good journalists have to believe in objective truth and the possibility of impartiality. There may be no such thing as objective truth or impartiality. If that's the case, then these things are delusions that are required for good journalism.
    - ivanbakel 7y ago
      What benefit do those ideas have to journalism, and what more makes them required? I don't see what positive impact they would have on me as a reader.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Those "articles" were published in the opinion and lifestyle sections, not the news sections, and were not considered journalistic pieces. But I suppose when someone has an ideological axe to grind they don't care about finer points like that.
fzeroracer 7y ago
He's right to not trust journalists, and that's precisely why I don't trust his article. He talks about spreading the true story of Thomas Monson but what I see in his article is an attempt to pave over the negative contributions and criticism he has received because he did some amazing things in his youth. No one person is owed immunity from criticism and there is plenty of critique to be thrown here.
- briandear 7y ago
  But they didn’t even report the accomplishments: they focused on their agenda and not the whole story. They omitted the parts that didn’t support their premise. And it was an obituary! By definition it is supposed to be about the life and times of the person and their lasting impact.
  - inertiatic 7y ago
    It's certainly possible to be defined by the things that were within your power but didn't do.
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    If the deed is considered bad enough, it eclipses most other things: Jefferson Davis' obituary was also considered overly harsh by a segment of the population. While Monson is obviously not Jeff Davis, his opposition to the rights of a minority hurt an awful lot of people.
  - ejstronge 7y ago
    I'd encourage you to take a closer look at the article, which by no means is as negative as your post and others have indicated[1]. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
    - beatgammit 7y ago
      I just read it, and the "positive" stuff is in the last half of the article. Basically, the first several paragraphs are about some relatively niche recent events, mostly focusing on gay/lgbt policies (didn't mention the impact of that until near the end), women, and changes to missionary age. It felt like it was intended to drive a specific narrative until the tone changes a bit near the end of the article. Newspaper articles tend to start with the most relevant points first, and then expand as the article continues, and which details get put where are very important. I often read only the first few paragraphs unless I'm very interested in the details, so it makes sense that someone would be frustrated by the choice of what to put in the first few paragraphs. If I were to write this piece, I would mention the focus on working with other religions for mutual charitable goals (last couple of paragraphs) and emphasis on caring for widows (his personal focus) along with recent events (lgbt policy change, for example) since that more completely communicates his legacy. Him "not bending" to a relatively small protest isn't particularly relevant to his legacy and perhaps belongs further down the article. The obituary doesn't need to be positive, but it should be a relatively diverse view of his legacy, and the beginning is especially important to that, and that is where I think this article failed. I don't expect a newspaper to sugarcoat someone's life, but nor do I think it's acceptable to put mostly negative things at the beginning and leave the positive for later where most readers won't read. The beginning should be a relatively comprehensive view of the subject matter that covers good and bad in roughly the same ratio as the rest of the article, which should have a relatively unbiased selection of facts from the subject matter.
lalaland1125 7y ago
The writer of this piece is either naive or disingenuous. The NYT is primarily focusing on how this person's actions have affected their readers and at the end of the day the LDS's homophobia and misogyny are the ways in which the LDS has most affected NYT's readers in New York and Americans nationwide. That's why the NYT leads with those sections and focuses the most on them. There isn't an "agenda" here trying to dirty the image of the Mormon church: the church earned that reputation through actual actions that harmed millions of marginalized Americans.
- nyolfen 7y ago
  fish, water etc. everyone thinks their weltanschauung is simply reality. a wise writer knows that reality is complicated. the focus on politically convenient grievances and total ignorance of conflicting information should give you pause.
- phendrenad2 7y ago
  But how does homophobia and misogyny within the Mormon church affect people who aren't in the Mormon church? Also I find it telling that you say "the church earned that reputation". Yes, the church, not a single man. The leader of a church is rarely a king who can change doctrine on a whim. If this man had repented of homophobia and misogyny, he may well have been supplanted by someone else the very next day. So among the many things wrong with the wording of this obit, the fact that they call him out personally as homophobic/misogynist rather than something more accurate like "under his leadership the CHURCH was homophobic/misogynistic" is a big one.
  - mattyb678 7y ago
    > [H]ow does homophobia...within the Mormon Church affect those outside the church? Prop 8 is perhaps the prime example of how it affects those outside the church. The LDS church was the main financial contributor to the yes on prop 8 campaign.
    - SauciestGNU 7y ago
      We could also mention the Boy Scouts here too. I was a scout, but some of my valued peers were gay and the Mormon church led a witch-hunt against gay scouts, as well as atheists (as I personally identify). My friends felt essentially forced to quit scouting due to the policies attributable to the Mormons.
empath75 7y ago
There are 25,000 Mormons in New York City. They’re a vanishingly small percentage of the New York Times’ readership. I think the paper would have poorly served ita readers by delivering a hagiography for him from the perspective of his religious followers.
- briandear 7y ago
  Truth matters. And selective editing of the truth to fit an agenda is journalistic malpractice.
  - iron0013 7y ago
    Whitewashing the reputation of a famous person—although it happens all the time-would be far worse malpractice
    - neonate 7y ago
      Whitewashing is hardly the only alternative. A more complete picture, including all these things, is also possible.
awinder 7y ago
The Times ended up following up on the controversy this generated: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/reader-center/thomas-monson-obituary.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/reader-center/thomas-mons... It’s clear that this author and others were really peeved by the way the times covered this, but “don’t trust journalists” is a wrongheaded message imo. You’re able to dialogue with an individual outlet as shown here. And you’re able to overlay different news sources on given issues to get a wider picture if that’s what you want to do. Overall “trust but verify” works exceedingly well, but there seems like a bit of a degree of grief in this writing.
- criddell 7y ago
  Are there journalists you trust?
  - specialist 7y ago
    I trust citing sources. I trust multiple sourcing. I trust verified data and leg work. I trust intellectual honesty (eg updates, errata, retractions). -- I was an activist for a while. Election integrity and voter privacy (secret ballot). I blogged about my efforts. I shared all my work, so people could factcheck too. I revised my views as I learned more. I tried very hard to present the alternate views (conclusions) of the people I disagreed with. It's no different than investigative journalism. The real trick, the hard part, is figuring out how to fund the work.
    - criddell 7y ago
      And if I read your blog I probably wouldn't trust your work either. I have no way of knowing if you are citing everything or only the sources that support the story you want to write. If your point is you should only trust yourself, then that's hard to argue with.
      - specialist 7y ago
        Sure. But then how do you make decisions? I've resolved this dilemma by settling for True Enough. I used to be a Popperian. While I still think that's the ideal, in practice it seems impractical. Now I'm a prediction engine. Learn enough to feel comfortable making a decision. If results don't match expectations, go back and update my ruleset, try again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
iron0013 7y ago
What the heck? The job of a journalist is not to tell you what you want to hear. I’m sorry if some Mormons didn’t want to hear unpleasant things about their leader, but if they were true then they were news
- grimmfang 7y ago
  Exactly, I'm surprised this post is even being upvoted here on HN. It sounds like NYT did their job, and did it well (considering so many people got pissed off). We can not tolerate tiptoeing around subjects simply because someone's "faith" might be offended.
  - gliese1337 7y ago
    So, you can judge the quality of journalism based on how many people it pisses off?
  - rayiner 7y ago
    You don’t have to tip-toe around a sensitive subject in order to give the reader a meaningful look at what’s going on. The article does a good job listing information that was important to help understand Monson in context. You can do that and also address the issues the obituary talked about. But judging everything in terms of a narrow set of political issues doesn’t educate the reader. It’s not good journalism. (I’d love to read the New York Times obituary of the founder of Bangladesh. I wonder what it would be like, viewed through the narrow political lens of a liberal New Yorker. Would it lead with his views on abortion?)
  - _vertigo 7y ago
    I had the same knee jerk reaction as you. But I think the question is not “should we tiptoe around subjects”. The question is about framing and notability. Pretend you have to make your own headline about the life of this guy. How do you frame his life? You could focus on his achievements and his significance to Mormons and not mention the controversy until later in the article. You could do what the Times did, which is mention only his controversies and say nothing of his significance to your average Mormon. You could do a mix of the two (“celebrated within the Church, but mired in controversy without it”). Either way you go, you are making a big decision on how to frame this guy’s life. Which one is more fair? Which one is more profitable? Which panders the most to your readership? Which one is the least/most controversial? These are all questions the editor has to consider. I have no small amount of distaste for the Mormon Church and Mormonism. I would prefer that any headline about Monson’s death mention the controversies that the Times mentions. But I also agree with the author that the Times’ headline is an extremely one dimensional view that just reinforced my already former opinion about Mormonism rather than giving me an alternative perspective from which to see it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
TomMckenny 7y ago
The NYT accurately reports the death of a Mormon leader who worked against women's and gay rights. This blogger does not deny the accuracy of this but thinks this is an unimportant part of the Mormon leader's life, not worthy of mention. Of lower priority than the standardization of the three hour sermon for example. Regardless, the relative importance of theses issues is his _opinion_ . And 180,000 saints agree (the author and Mormoms generally refer to themselves as saints). But it is still an _opinion_ by a group who are so opposed to gay rights, they continue to oppose a pro-equality supreme court decision that included four conservative justices. Presumably the many millions of "non-saints" this discrimination works against in daily life have an opposite _opinion_ about this issues' importance. The blogger, also accuses the NYT of being click bait. The NYT's title was "Thomas Monson, President of the Mormon Church, Dies at 90". The blogger titles his post "Do Not Trust Journalism" stretching what is an accurate report whose topic ordering he does not like, to imply every story in the NYT and indeed all journalism is deceitful. For example, Reuters had the same title. I too could become an obscure blogger with religio-emotionally shaped opinions and clickbait titles if I posted a one side response article titled "Mormons Oppose Free Press". Such a story would be as unworthy of serious attention as this one. But instead, this story is taken seriously. An indication of how far down the anti-press, anti-reality, pro-religious-nationalism rabbit hole we have fallen. A result of a trend where tales from the most obscure parts of the web are sought out to match the readers preconceived opinions and then taken as complete gospel over all else regardless of implausibility or internal inconsistency. Religions and certain secular leaders and their followers often dislike the press and much of literature, it will never be too hard to find someone somewhere claiming things they don't like are deception and thus presumably "evil". For example in Italy at this same period, you will find outraged denunciation of press "lying" criticism of Padre Pio. Conversely, it would be nice to talk with clear headed people about a solution to the rise of religious-nationalism including its war on the press rather than debating obscure right wing blog's cry of "Lügenpresse". Just as it's nice to talk to informed people about climate without repeatedly facing a stream of deniers. Ultimately I image many will decide that truth is between these two: that reality lays halfway between the uncomfortable facts they learn and the things that they wish were true.
- neonate 7y ago
inertiatic 7y ago
As a European with little knowledge of Mormonism apart from the basics of its history, this obituary was far more informative of what the religion and its leadership stands for than the article linked itself. Most outsiders don't care, at all, what effect a leader had inside a sect, but how their work affected the outside.
- innocentoldguy 7y ago
  I found the information on their helping the poor and needy, and helping educate over 100,000 people who otherwise wouldn’t have had that scholastic opportunity, worthy of report.
  - fsh 7y ago
    His efforts in charity are mentioned in the article. I feel like most people that criticize the obituary have only read the tweet about it.
    - bubblesocks 7y ago
      It could be that since the obituary is behind a paywall, many people don't know what it contains, other than what they've heard second-hand.
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    That information is in the NYT article too. Which is probably why the blogger did not actually link to it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
    - scintill76 7y ago
      I don't see anything about the education program in NYT. It doesn't make a huge difference though. I scanned through http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co... as well. Nothing stood out as a fundamental change that would explain why the blogger's unbiased perception could be different from others'.
nostromo 7y ago
I see no problem with how the Times framed the story, and I’m no fan of the Times. If Mormons want to oppose same sex marriage and women in leadership, that’s up to them - but don’t get upset if it’s mentioned in your obituary when you’re literally the head of the church. The Times however is very, very uneven in how they handle this though. They will chide Mormons at any opportunity for sexism or homophobia, but refrain from treating Orthodox Jews or Muslims similarly.
- neonate 7y ago
  > don’t get upset if it’s mentioned The objection isn't that it was mentioned but that it became the entire story.
  - fsh 7y ago
    Which is not true. The NYT article covers basically everything the blogger writes about.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - neonate 7y ago
      I didn't read the NYT article. If that's true, then the blogger's complaints would be less justified.
- leftyted 7y ago
  > If Mormons want to oppose same sex marriage and women in leadership, that’s up to them - but don’t get upset if it’s mentioned in your obituary when you’re literally the head of the church. I've been reading a book of Umberto Eco essays lately. I really like them. Eco manages to synthesize many different historical perspectives into some very general arguments about whichever complicated subject he's discussing. I think that's basically what the goal of an obituary should be. It should mention this person's opposition to same-sex marriage and the ordination of women. But it should also mention other things, some of which are outlined in this article. Out of all these different perspectives, something like the truth will emerge.
ncmncm 7y ago
I found it amusing that the writer (and journalist) listed opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment among achievements worth defending. It still hasn't passed, to all our disgrace. It only needs a few more states to ratify it.
- macintux 7y ago
  I didn't interpret that as a defense. I interpreted that as noteworthy and an indication of the complexity of his tenure that wasn't adequately captured.
  - ElderKorihor 7y ago
    I think you're almost certainly correct. The "giveaway" to someone from a Mormon background was the inclusion of "Monson led the committees that codified the doctrines taught in every Mormon meetinghouse across the Earth." in the article. This sentence probably sounds completely banal and uninteresting to outsiders, but the "correlation" process, as it is called, it largely hated by both the most fundamental believers AND the most rabid apostates. The believers hate it because it's watered down all the crazy (and frankly much more interesting) parts of Mormon doctrine, Ex-mormons hate it because it whitewashes away many uncomfortable historical truths. The institution is invested in it, however, as a way to try to stamp out the legacy of polygamy. Like you say, the point of this article is that there's a lot of "there" there, but it takes more digging to find that NYT was willing to invest.
    - lcall 7y ago
      For what it may be worth: As a lifelong member who knows many others and reads a lot, I am completely unaware of anyone hating correlation. It has never come up in any conversation or thing I have read, until now that I see your comment. On the other hand, I am aware of tremendous amounts of original historical source materials and information on many topics that have been published and made freely available on the 'net, to anyone, including about experiences and statistics around polygamy and many other things). When I compare the journals I have read (handed down) and oral family history stories, personalities I have known, etc etc., with what I have seen of Church publicationis and online materials, I see nothing being whitewashed or hidden.
rayiner 7y ago
This article is spot on. New York Times stories are unable to engage on any subject in its own merits. Everything gets filtered through an increasingly narrow political lens. My wife and I belong to a church that disagrees with the LDS church in gay marriage and ordination of women. But I don’t want to read the obituary of someone like Monson and have it be about those two issues. There are 16 million Mormons. There is more to their world than those two issues. I don’t read the news to be given a set of talking points fitting into a particular narrative, even when I agree with the narrative. I want to understand the subject on its own terms. For my own part, as an immigrant from the third world, it’s maddening to read coverage of foreign events in the New York Times. You can’t understand what’s going on in the rest of the world through the lens of liberal New York politics.
- aplummer 7y ago
  > liberal New York politics I would: a) imagine something called the NY times to be somewhat skewed to NY. b) It’s only liberal in America. In any other first world country, it’s right wing.
  - mc32 7y ago
    > imagine something called the NY times to be somewhat skewed to NY. That's not the reputation they sell when they call themselves the "Newspaper of Record"[1]. They also cultivate themselves as internationalists. They do not represent themselves ala NY Post (i.e. "hizzoner") [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_of_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_of_record
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    The rest of the world is much more conservative on social issues than America?
    - skissane 7y ago
      193 UN member states. How many have marriage equality? About 30. So, measured on that issue, the US is more liberal than approximately 85% of the countries in the world.
inertiatic 7y ago
Taken to an extreme, would you rather an obituary of Hitler not focus on a certain narrative as Nazi Germany numbered 100 million people and there certainly was more to their world than hating Jews?
- benjohnson 7y ago
  If I'm understanding correctly I would like an obituary of Hitler to be comprehensive - because with a broader context we could perhaps understand how he rose to power. Or understand how a politician can be so charismatic that the people ignore the deaths of their neighbors.
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    The NYT article _is_ comprehensive, covering most of what the blogger says it lacked. Which is probably why he did not actually link to it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
- dang 7y ago
  Not this, please. The internet can't handle it. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876278.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
BadThink6655321 7y ago
Of three news articles of which I have first hand knowledge, two completely misreported facts. They were exercises in reinforcing a narrative - the truth be damned. The third was accurate, but it was over 45 years ago.
filmgirlcw 7y ago
There is an irony in a member of a church that had famously attempted to cover up all of the atrocities committed by its leadership, even going so far as buying forged documents it feared would expose the church to scorn — a church that goes after its critics in a way unrivaled by any other group, except perhaps the Catholic Church (and even then, pretty sure LDS has it beat), is complaining about an obituary in a secular paper not focusing on the party line, which in this case was “we were able to recruit a bunch of people to join Amway, er, the Mormon church” (that comparison is intentional), isn’t up to his standards. Also, anyone who doesn’t think that this obituary is completely ordinary for publications like the Times is mistaken. The obituary for John Paul the II saved the criticism for the end, granted, but look at the obituary for Cardinal Law [1]. And if anyone thinks that when Benedict dies (the Pope emeritus), the obit won’t lead with his controversies, I think they are wrong. It’s too soon to say what they’d lead with on Pope Francis, but I’m sure his controversies with the conservative parts of the church will be mentioned. Journalists aren’t your friends. And the role isn’t to write propaganda, which is exactly what this guy wants from an obituary. I’m sure the Deseret News was much more to his liking. And that’s the other part of journalism. When it thrives, there isn’t just one source. There are many different perspectives that can be shared. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/obituaries/cardinal-bernard-law-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/obituaries/cardinal-berna...
SahAssar 7y ago
The money-shot is in the last paragraph: > That is the lesson of this entire saga. The New York Times defends themselves in the name of journalism. They are journalists they tell us, not religious propagandists. And with that declaration they reveal the truth: to be a journalist is to write, and to write, and seek credit for what you write even though you know nothing about those things which you write about. The point of a journalist is not to write your perspective as a member of a group, it is to write as one outside a group. This person was expecting the article/comment/tweet to be written as if from that group, and that is not journalism, that's more like a documentary. Imagine if all journalistic articles were written from the perspective within that group, would that really be a more informational and educational read? If you disagree with how journalism sees your particular group then perhaps it's time to think about if this is how that grouping is actually seen from the outside. If there is a clear dissonance between how you see your group and how it's seen from the outside, ask yourself why that is.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ardy42 7y ago
  > The point of a journalist is not to write your perspective as a member of a group, it is to write as one outside a group. This person was expecting the article/comment/tweet to be written as if from that group, and that is not journalism, that's more like a documentary. There's actually a middle ground here. An obituary should really be a kind of capsule biography that explains someone how they're seen inside and outside their group. The NYT didn't to that, but rather they dwelled too much on a few controversies and almost entirely glossed over why and how he rose to the position he had. There's room for improvement in how they handled this.
fsh 7y ago
After having read the obituary, I fail to see anything wrong with it. The blog post does not give any factual errors, and the alleged omissions about the lifetime achievements of the deceased are actually in the NYT article. The article is also well sourced and the editorial shows a solid research and writing process. The blog post follows a dangerous trend, where people try to discredit the whole concept of journalism whenever they read something they don't like.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  Exactly. The other force at work is rising religious-nationalism which makes it increasingly difficult for the press to speak ill of powerful people.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  IDK, I think we really need to have a discussion on what "journalism" means. Articles are becoming increasingly clickbait, and news agencies seem to be more biased than in the past. Perhaps the bias is just becoming more obvious and clickbait is just a natural consequence of increasing competition, but I'm finding it difficult to find news agencies that I can trust to report in an unbiased manner. I just want to subscribe to a few news organizations that have high journalistic standards so I can get a reasonably complete overview of a variety of current events. But I feel like I instead have to seek out news agencies with opposing biases and hope that I didn't miss a bias (e.g. have a conservative and liberal publication, but what about libertarian, green, etc?). Why can't I just subscribe to comprehensive journalism? I want to know all of the good and bad things about all sides of an issue, not just the side the author/news agency prefers. Don't tell me how was Monson is without telling me how good he is. Give me as many competing details and viewpoints as will fit in the space available and leave the subjectivity to the editorial section.
  - fsh 7y ago
    I don't think that discussing about nebulous concepts such as "liberal bias" is any helpful. Do you have some examples where you felt that for example a NYT article was missing important information? Which details or viewpoints are missing from the obituary in your opinion?
Ste_Evans 7y ago
But if you and your wife belong to a church then you are delusional and have been duped. How can you accuse the NYT of having a political lens which distorts the "truth" when by the standards of empirical science you are essentially insane. The problem is that there are so many of you religiously insane people that you distort politics.Imagine how it is for us sane people to be ruled by a tyranny of the delusional majority.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 7y ago
  Speaking as an atheist, what is likely more "insane" is unhumbly writing off centuries of successful culture simply because it is phrased in terms of an imagined omnipresent being.
  - Ste_Evans 7y ago
    I'm not sure the word "atheist" is necessary when we have the word "sane". The article is a religious person complaining about NYT seeing Mormonism through a particular lens. But if viewed objectively, the Mormon leader in the obituary was a criminal fraudster who told lies to get money. The only reason NYT don't write the full objective truth is because of the political power of religions based on the money they earn from criminal fraud. Humility is not required to point out that the Emperor has no Clothes. The culture of religions was made by humans, but the central tenets are lies to extort money. Organised religions are just a little more subtle and less violent, in some cases, than organised crime that's all. This is the reality, but the NYT journalists can't write it because they would be murdered if they did.
  - Ste_Evans 7y ago
    There are 3 generally possible responses to the article. 1) You agree that the NYT is imposing some sort of a liberal filter on the Mormon leader's actions. 2) You think the NYT's position is reasonable. 3) Or, you think like me that the NYT should have pointed out that the Mormon leader had committed criminal fraud by lying to take money off people. It is my genuine view, but as you see here, if your view is 3) then it will be flagged.We are not allowed to say that the Emperor has no clothes.
ausbah 7y ago
It probably is the whole point of the article, but chastising the NYT for writing one perspective on a subject to promote an agenda then going and writing another differing perspective promoting a competing agenda is a bit contradictory. The author here bashes the NYT because they don't show what he sees as the "good" parts of the Mormon leader - coming from a Mormon perspective, but the whole reason they don't is because they are inherently competing perspectives. I think its also worth considering what exactly constitutes journalism and the audience a publication is writing for. An obituary isn't just a piece saying "X person is now deceased", it is more like "X person is now deceased AND here is a brief summary of their life". The former is strictly news, the later is news with somewhat subjective attachment (still has facts, but which ones you choose and in what order paint a certain picture). That somewhat subjective attachment is going to be dictated by the audience one is writing for, a liberal audience is going to get a liberal opinion (here painting the Mormon leader in a negative right) and vice versa for a Mormon audience. I do not think this is wrong, it is only natural - you just have to know when something is something is being used to have a specific slant (even when using facts). As for my opinion, Thomas Monson and the LDS church are backwards group of people whose influence in American society I am happy to see slowly piddle away.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  I don't understand why reporting "competing" information is a problem. I'm not reading a news piece to get the author's opinion on something, I'm reading a news piece to get enough information to form my own opinion on something. Therefore, I expect some good with the bad, and if I only get one or the other, the bias in the news organization becomes very clear and I'm less likely to continue reading their articles. For example, when reading about Trump's impeachment, I care not only about the evidence against him, but also his defense concerning that evidence and an idea of the strength of both sides of the argument. If a newspaper continually stresses one side of an argument, I'll stop reading that newspaper. I've been on the fence about the NYT, and stuff like this doesn't help my opinion about that paper. Obviously one article about a subject that isn't very relevant to most people won't be the only reason I'd avoid a paper, but it is telling that they're willing to stake their reputation on an apparently poorly researched obituary.
20191224234044 7y ago
As a Chinese person, I've often felt that since about 3-4 years ago, NYT's coverage of almost everything China has become increasingly biased, and is increasingly targeted not at the government but at making ordinary Chinese people's lives difficult. However, very few Western people care about this, since the reports fit in with the narrative that people are already antecedently inclined to accept. When it's something one likes to hear, truth can take a back seat (especially when the domain is not one in which it pays to know the truth - there's not a hard reality you can run into). Therefore I'm very pessimistic that reports like this could make any difference. Yes, every once in a while we read sth in our own domain of expertise, and we wonder how we could justify being so trustful of everything else we read. But eventually we will all go back to our old ways, especially when (i) what we read is what we like to read, and (ii) it's not a subject on which there's any 'hard reality' to bump into.
atlgator 7y ago
Journalism schools teach provocation. Look for the edge, look for the spin. There's no money in objectivity.
- bubblesocks 7y ago
  I didn't go to journalism school but I did take a couple of journalism classes as part of my writing degree. We were taught to be objective and not provocative in my classes.
hitekker 7y ago
An obituary that seems to have more journalistic integrity than the one the author objects to: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/mormon-prophet/549773/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/mormon-...
jstewartmobile 7y ago
This person is obviously not a disinterested party--yet still not wrong! I've done business in many different sectors over the years, and in every single one, the venality and nearsightedness of journalism was both strikingly obvious and aggressively exploited.
charliebrownau 7y ago
Its very clear from 2009-2019 that 99% of Western "Journalists" are Global Left wing activists brainwashed by the liberalism/diversity/multiculturalism/anti white narrative
TomMckenny 7y ago
Of course rather than taking a bloggers opinion of bias as fact, one could actually read the piece and see for oneself whether it is as outrageously biased as is claimed. Unfortunately, no doubt due to some oversight on the part of the blogger, the link to the original, rather than being with the top image, is actually pretty buried so here it is. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
specialist 7y ago
Both NYT's and scholars-stage's obits are editorial. Only the news of Monson's passing is reporting. Neither did any journalism. -- Much as I dislike NYT (and by extension all corporate media), I'm unmoved by this criticism. scholars-stage defended a person he (she?) respected and published his (her?) own obit. That is right and proper.
mythrwy 7y ago
I agree journalists are often ill informed, agenda driven and misleading. In this case though what did they say that was untrue? The church and Monson did hold these views and continue to. Stand up proud about it if that's who you are. You can't have it both ways. If the complaint is a negative slant, well, that's modern agenda driven journalism apparently. Feel free not to subscribe or start your own paper. (Which they do). But don't expect positions contrary to the currently popular to be minimized in promotion of your niche in a major paper.

198 points by barry-cotter 7y ago

rectang 7y ago

Left unsaid: whether you should trust journalists you consider your political allies.

Spooky23 7y ago
Only if you have them on the hook for a longer engagement. I joke that if you want to understand an issue, the local paper is great for eliminating reasons. They never tell the whole story and are rarely interested in it. Talking to a journalist is like talking to the police. They have a specific agenda and standard for publishing that doesn’t necessarily align with telling a story as you perceive it. You have to be able to manipulate them, which is best left to professionals.
- dwater 7y ago
  That was my experience. I once talked to a newspaper reporter for 20 minutes and he used maybe a 10 word quote that I felt did not represent the point of what I had explained to him. I would not speak to a reporter unprepared again.
- btilly 7y ago
  Talking to a journalist is like talking to the police. They have a specific agenda and standard for publishing that doesn’t necessarily align with telling a story as you perceive it. You have to be able to manipulate them, which is best left to professionals. A lesson that I have seen learned the hard way. The reason why celebrities say "No comment" is that it can't be misquoted. My favorite example of a deliberate journalistic misquote is that my mother was on a phone with a journalist and used a phrase starting with, "It is not that I..." It appeared in print as, "It is...that I..." Yes, the word "not" was replaced with "..." to reverse the meaning of what she said so that she would look bad.

akersten 7y ago

Flagging for classic whataboutism and whining that the NYT does not serve as a mouthpiece of the LDS. > Will the New York Times ever tell this story—the story of a people, of a faith, of a life that has changed millions through decisions small and large made over the last sixty years? They will not.

dang 7y ago
Please keep reflexive tropes like "whataboutism" off this site. They don't add information and count as name-calling in the sense that we use the term here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. See also the bit about shallow dismissals. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20whataboutism&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

anigbrowl 7y ago

The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins humorously imagined the same treatment being given to other members of America’s recently deceased: “Hugh Hefner, the Playboy founder who rebuffed demands that he stop publishing a misogynistic pornographic magazine and exploiting young women, died at 91." That would be an equally legitimate take.

Animats 7y ago
If he'd lived two more years, he probably would have had obituaries like that. The Guardian did give him a obit like that. "The man who created Playboy, who has died aged 91, has been remembered as an American icon – but others recall a controlling, emotionally abusive manipulator"[1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/28/hugh-hefner-playboy-founder-91-dark-side https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/28/hugh-hefner-pl...
briandear 7y ago
But a take they didn’t chose to take, that’s the point.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  The author appears to have missed the takes that were actually that (Guardian was one).
  - TomMckenny 7y ago
    He missed quite a few: but of course the author is not writing to inform but shape opinion of a religious leader.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  It's not very meaningful. The article is saying you can't trust journalists in general because one of them had a take he disliked about a person he admired. The existence of a more gentle take about someone else on tells you about the editorial view of one writer or one editor at one outlet. It doesn't establish some sort of standard to which all other obituaries must adhere.

btilly 7y ago

I voted for it because it describes a real problem with journalism as it is practiced today. Journalists focus on the most attention grabbing tidbit that comes to mind from recent events. They do not attempt to get context on it. And do not attempt to inform. Then when it becomes clear that they have screwed up, they double down on their position because they are important people. They are journalists, and therefore they are right. At least in their own mind. But I have never seen journalists report accurately on any story that I knew well. And their failure to even attempt it causes great harm to the American public. Now about the subject in question, as an atheist I oppose the LDS and all it stands for. However this was a man who made a tremendous impact within the Church and around the world. While conservative by today's standards, he was relatively progressive compared to society for most of his life. Even while I dislike his work against gay marriage, I still applaud his work in rooting racism out of Mormon theology. And hearing about his real life accomplishments has left me more informed.

kick 7y ago
But I have never seen journalists report accurately on any story that I knew well. And their failure to even attempt it causes great harm to the American public. What publications do you read? For a random example off the top of my head, I've found that Glenn Greenwald's reporting is exceptional on topics I know well.
- btilly 7y ago
  You are right, I overstated the case. My impression is that Glenn Greenwald's reporting is indeed excellent. However my knowledge of secret surveillance is from the writings of people like him - it is not a subject that I have independent knowledge that I can verify anything from. Furthermore at this point I would consider him more of a subject matter expert than a general journalist. Reporting on the same topics in CNN or the NYT tends to be pretty shoddy. That said, there are some publications, such as Propublica and The Economist that seem to consistently do a good job of reporting. So it is not all. But it is a lot. That said, I was basing my comments on my personal expertise on programming, math, physics and a handful of celebrities that I happen to know personally. Reporting on all of those is pretty uniformly terrible.

dang 7y ago

All: there's a decent debate about journalism to be had here. Please keep the comments substantive and within the site guidelines—no flamebait or flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

finnthehuman 7y ago

The LDS church is interesting in that it simultaneously large enough and insular enough to make stark differences in journalistic angles sharp. Journalism often falls into a trap that puts the cart before the horse. It's preordained [no pun intended] what type of coverage many events are going to get. Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? A journo doesn't go into something to figure out "what's the deal with [foo]?" That won't sell (not to the public, nor their editors). But the reality is often worse. Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats. edit: I'm editing out an already-vague story about being involved with something that receives media coverage. I'll just say if you notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter you're a unrelated professional in, being the "who" in receiving end of news coverage lets you see just how much they want to draw conclusions for the rest of the world unless you work on visibility to counter their obvious narrative angles. And the worst thing is, once this is the game it doesn't matter how right or wrong they are because organizations are going to fight negative coverage either way.

closed 7y ago
> Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it? Their obit for the previous president, Gordan B Hinckley is quite positive... https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html Edit: here are more if people are curious. One before, and one after the Mormon church allowed black people similar position as non-black people. They're still pretty upbeat. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mormon-leader-is-dead-at-96-david-mckay-mormon.html https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mo... https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon-chief-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon...
- simple_phrases 7y ago
  There's a certain irony in the OP accusing journalists of starting with a premise and working backwards, when the OP did it themself.

leftyted 7y ago

It's not what's "the most attention grabbing tidbit" -- that's what tabloids do. It's ideological. As the piece says: > [The journalist] forced events and personalities into a narrow, pre-conceived frame that bore little relation to the reality before him Same thing as the NYT publishing an article about how the space program was about white supremacy. Same thing as the Times' 1619 project, which alleged that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the colonies. Being a journalist is hard. Too many journalists seem to believe that "it's impossible to be apolitical" or "if you aren't working to dismantle the system, you're part of the problem" or even "no facts, only interpretations". These perspectives aren't necessarily wrong, but you can't be a good journalist if you've internalized them.

ivanbakel 7y ago
>These perspectives aren't necessarily wrong, but you can't be a good journalist if you've internalized them. In what way can both of those things hold? If the perspectives aren't wrong, what bearing do they have on good journalism?
- leftyted 7y ago
  Good journalists have to believe in objective truth and the possibility of impartiality. There may be no such thing as objective truth or impartiality. If that's the case, then these things are delusions that are required for good journalism.
  - ivanbakel 7y ago
    What benefit do those ideas have to journalism, and what more makes them required? I don't see what positive impact they would have on me as a reader.
gamblor956 7y ago
Those "articles" were published in the opinion and lifestyle sections, not the news sections, and were not considered journalistic pieces. But I suppose when someone has an ideological axe to grind they don't care about finer points like that.

fzeroracer 7y ago

He's right to not trust journalists, and that's precisely why I don't trust his article. He talks about spreading the true story of Thomas Monson but what I see in his article is an attempt to pave over the negative contributions and criticism he has received because he did some amazing things in his youth. No one person is owed immunity from criticism and there is plenty of critique to be thrown here.

briandear 7y ago
But they didn’t even report the accomplishments: they focused on their agenda and not the whole story. They omitted the parts that didn’t support their premise. And it was an obituary! By definition it is supposed to be about the life and times of the person and their lasting impact.
- inertiatic 7y ago
  It's certainly possible to be defined by the things that were within your power but didn't do.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  If the deed is considered bad enough, it eclipses most other things: Jefferson Davis' obituary was also considered overly harsh by a segment of the population. While Monson is obviously not Jeff Davis, his opposition to the rights of a minority hurt an awful lot of people.
- ejstronge 7y ago
  I'd encourage you to take a closer look at the article, which by no means is as negative as your post and others have indicated[1]. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    I just read it, and the "positive" stuff is in the last half of the article. Basically, the first several paragraphs are about some relatively niche recent events, mostly focusing on gay/lgbt policies (didn't mention the impact of that until near the end), women, and changes to missionary age. It felt like it was intended to drive a specific narrative until the tone changes a bit near the end of the article. Newspaper articles tend to start with the most relevant points first, and then expand as the article continues, and which details get put where are very important. I often read only the first few paragraphs unless I'm very interested in the details, so it makes sense that someone would be frustrated by the choice of what to put in the first few paragraphs. If I were to write this piece, I would mention the focus on working with other religions for mutual charitable goals (last couple of paragraphs) and emphasis on caring for widows (his personal focus) along with recent events (lgbt policy change, for example) since that more completely communicates his legacy. Him "not bending" to a relatively small protest isn't particularly relevant to his legacy and perhaps belongs further down the article. The obituary doesn't need to be positive, but it should be a relatively diverse view of his legacy, and the beginning is especially important to that, and that is where I think this article failed. I don't expect a newspaper to sugarcoat someone's life, but nor do I think it's acceptable to put mostly negative things at the beginning and leave the positive for later where most readers won't read. The beginning should be a relatively comprehensive view of the subject matter that covers good and bad in roughly the same ratio as the rest of the article, which should have a relatively unbiased selection of facts from the subject matter.

lalaland1125 7y ago

The writer of this piece is either naive or disingenuous. The NYT is primarily focusing on how this person's actions have affected their readers and at the end of the day the LDS's homophobia and misogyny are the ways in which the LDS has most affected NYT's readers in New York and Americans nationwide. That's why the NYT leads with those sections and focuses the most on them. There isn't an "agenda" here trying to dirty the image of the Mormon church: the church earned that reputation through actual actions that harmed millions of marginalized Americans.

nyolfen 7y ago
fish, water etc. everyone thinks their weltanschauung is simply reality. a wise writer knows that reality is complicated. the focus on politically convenient grievances and total ignorance of conflicting information should give you pause.
phendrenad2 7y ago
But how does homophobia and misogyny within the Mormon church affect people who aren't in the Mormon church? Also I find it telling that you say "the church earned that reputation". Yes, the church, not a single man. The leader of a church is rarely a king who can change doctrine on a whim. If this man had repented of homophobia and misogyny, he may well have been supplanted by someone else the very next day. So among the many things wrong with the wording of this obit, the fact that they call him out personally as homophobic/misogynist rather than something more accurate like "under his leadership the CHURCH was homophobic/misogynistic" is a big one.
- mattyb678 7y ago
  > [H]ow does homophobia...within the Mormon Church affect those outside the church? Prop 8 is perhaps the prime example of how it affects those outside the church. The LDS church was the main financial contributor to the yes on prop 8 campaign.
  - SauciestGNU 7y ago
    We could also mention the Boy Scouts here too. I was a scout, but some of my valued peers were gay and the Mormon church led a witch-hunt against gay scouts, as well as atheists (as I personally identify). My friends felt essentially forced to quit scouting due to the policies attributable to the Mormons.

empath75 7y ago

There are 25,000 Mormons in New York City. They’re a vanishingly small percentage of the New York Times’ readership. I think the paper would have poorly served ita readers by delivering a hagiography for him from the perspective of his religious followers.

briandear 7y ago
Truth matters. And selective editing of the truth to fit an agenda is journalistic malpractice.
- iron0013 7y ago
  Whitewashing the reputation of a famous person—although it happens all the time-would be far worse malpractice
  - neonate 7y ago
    Whitewashing is hardly the only alternative. A more complete picture, including all these things, is also possible.

awinder 7y ago

The Times ended up following up on the controversy this generated: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/reader-center/thomas-monson-obituary.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/reader-center/thomas-mons... It’s clear that this author and others were really peeved by the way the times covered this, but “don’t trust journalists” is a wrongheaded message imo. You’re able to dialogue with an individual outlet as shown here. And you’re able to overlay different news sources on given issues to get a wider picture if that’s what you want to do. Overall “trust but verify” works exceedingly well, but there seems like a bit of a degree of grief in this writing.

criddell 7y ago
Are there journalists you trust?
- specialist 7y ago
  I trust citing sources. I trust multiple sourcing. I trust verified data and leg work. I trust intellectual honesty (eg updates, errata, retractions). -- I was an activist for a while. Election integrity and voter privacy (secret ballot). I blogged about my efforts. I shared all my work, so people could factcheck too. I revised my views as I learned more. I tried very hard to present the alternate views (conclusions) of the people I disagreed with. It's no different than investigative journalism. The real trick, the hard part, is figuring out how to fund the work.
  - criddell 7y ago
    And if I read your blog I probably wouldn't trust your work either. I have no way of knowing if you are citing everything or only the sources that support the story you want to write. If your point is you should only trust yourself, then that's hard to argue with.
    - specialist 7y ago
      Sure. But then how do you make decisions? I've resolved this dilemma by settling for True Enough. I used to be a Popperian. While I still think that's the ideal, in practice it seems impractical. Now I'm a prediction engine. Learn enough to feel comfortable making a decision. If results don't match expectations, go back and update my ruleset, try again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

iron0013 7y ago

What the heck? The job of a journalist is not to tell you what you want to hear. I’m sorry if some Mormons didn’t want to hear unpleasant things about their leader, but if they were true then they were news

grimmfang 7y ago
Exactly, I'm surprised this post is even being upvoted here on HN. It sounds like NYT did their job, and did it well (considering so many people got pissed off). We can not tolerate tiptoeing around subjects simply because someone's "faith" might be offended.
- gliese1337 7y ago
  So, you can judge the quality of journalism based on how many people it pisses off?
- rayiner 7y ago
  You don’t have to tip-toe around a sensitive subject in order to give the reader a meaningful look at what’s going on. The article does a good job listing information that was important to help understand Monson in context. You can do that and also address the issues the obituary talked about. But judging everything in terms of a narrow set of political issues doesn’t educate the reader. It’s not good journalism. (I’d love to read the New York Times obituary of the founder of Bangladesh. I wonder what it would be like, viewed through the narrow political lens of a liberal New Yorker. Would it lead with his views on abortion?)
- _vertigo 7y ago
  I had the same knee jerk reaction as you. But I think the question is not “should we tiptoe around subjects”. The question is about framing and notability. Pretend you have to make your own headline about the life of this guy. How do you frame his life? You could focus on his achievements and his significance to Mormons and not mention the controversy until later in the article. You could do what the Times did, which is mention only his controversies and say nothing of his significance to your average Mormon. You could do a mix of the two (“celebrated within the Church, but mired in controversy without it”). Either way you go, you are making a big decision on how to frame this guy’s life. Which one is more fair? Which one is more profitable? Which panders the most to your readership? Which one is the least/most controversial? These are all questions the editor has to consider. I have no small amount of distaste for the Mormon Church and Mormonism. I would prefer that any headline about Monson’s death mention the controversies that the Times mentions. But I also agree with the author that the Times’ headline is an extremely one dimensional view that just reinforced my already former opinion about Mormonism rather than giving me an alternative perspective from which to see it.

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TomMckenny 7y ago

The NYT accurately reports the death of a Mormon leader who worked against women's and gay rights. This blogger does not deny the accuracy of this but thinks this is an unimportant part of the Mormon leader's life, not worthy of mention. Of lower priority than the standardization of the three hour sermon for example. Regardless, the relative importance of theses issues is his _opinion_ . And 180,000 saints agree (the author and Mormoms generally refer to themselves as saints). But it is still an _opinion_ by a group who are so opposed to gay rights, they continue to oppose a pro-equality supreme court decision that included four conservative justices. Presumably the many millions of "non-saints" this discrimination works against in daily life have an opposite _opinion_ about this issues' importance. The blogger, also accuses the NYT of being click bait. The NYT's title was "Thomas Monson, President of the Mormon Church, Dies at 90". The blogger titles his post "Do Not Trust Journalism" stretching what is an accurate report whose topic ordering he does not like, to imply every story in the NYT and indeed all journalism is deceitful. For example, Reuters had the same title. I too could become an obscure blogger with religio-emotionally shaped opinions and clickbait titles if I posted a one side response article titled "Mormons Oppose Free Press". Such a story would be as unworthy of serious attention as this one. But instead, this story is taken seriously. An indication of how far down the anti-press, anti-reality, pro-religious-nationalism rabbit hole we have fallen. A result of a trend where tales from the most obscure parts of the web are sought out to match the readers preconceived opinions and then taken as complete gospel over all else regardless of implausibility or internal inconsistency. Religions and certain secular leaders and their followers often dislike the press and much of literature, it will never be too hard to find someone somewhere claiming things they don't like are deception and thus presumably "evil". For example in Italy at this same period, you will find outraged denunciation of press "lying" criticism of Padre Pio. Conversely, it would be nice to talk with clear headed people about a solution to the rise of religious-nationalism including its war on the press rather than debating obscure right wing blog's cry of "Lügenpresse". Just as it's nice to talk to informed people about climate without repeatedly facing a stream of deniers. Ultimately I image many will decide that truth is between these two: that reality lays halfway between the uncomfortable facts they learn and the things that they wish were true.

neonate 7y ago

inertiatic 7y ago

As a European with little knowledge of Mormonism apart from the basics of its history, this obituary was far more informative of what the religion and its leadership stands for than the article linked itself. Most outsiders don't care, at all, what effect a leader had inside a sect, but how their work affected the outside.

innocentoldguy 7y ago
I found the information on their helping the poor and needy, and helping educate over 100,000 people who otherwise wouldn’t have had that scholastic opportunity, worthy of report.
- fsh 7y ago
  His efforts in charity are mentioned in the article. I feel like most people that criticize the obituary have only read the tweet about it.
  - bubblesocks 7y ago
    It could be that since the obituary is behind a paywall, many people don't know what it contains, other than what they've heard second-hand.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  That information is in the NYT article too. Which is probably why the blogger did not actually link to it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
  - scintill76 7y ago
    I don't see anything about the education program in NYT. It doesn't make a huge difference though. I scanned through http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co... as well. Nothing stood out as a fundamental change that would explain why the blogger's unbiased perception could be different from others'.

nostromo 7y ago

I see no problem with how the Times framed the story, and I’m no fan of the Times. If Mormons want to oppose same sex marriage and women in leadership, that’s up to them - but don’t get upset if it’s mentioned in your obituary when you’re literally the head of the church. The Times however is very, very uneven in how they handle this though. They will chide Mormons at any opportunity for sexism or homophobia, but refrain from treating Orthodox Jews or Muslims similarly.

neonate 7y ago
> don’t get upset if it’s mentioned The objection isn't that it was mentioned but that it became the entire story.
- fsh 7y ago
  Which is not true. The NYT article covers basically everything the blogger writes about.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - neonate 7y ago
    I didn't read the NYT article. If that's true, then the blogger's complaints would be less justified.
leftyted 7y ago
> If Mormons want to oppose same sex marriage and women in leadership, that’s up to them - but don’t get upset if it’s mentioned in your obituary when you’re literally the head of the church. I've been reading a book of Umberto Eco essays lately. I really like them. Eco manages to synthesize many different historical perspectives into some very general arguments about whichever complicated subject he's discussing. I think that's basically what the goal of an obituary should be. It should mention this person's opposition to same-sex marriage and the ordination of women. But it should also mention other things, some of which are outlined in this article. Out of all these different perspectives, something like the truth will emerge.

ncmncm 7y ago

I found it amusing that the writer (and journalist) listed opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment among achievements worth defending. It still hasn't passed, to all our disgrace. It only needs a few more states to ratify it.

macintux 7y ago
I didn't interpret that as a defense. I interpreted that as noteworthy and an indication of the complexity of his tenure that wasn't adequately captured.
- ElderKorihor 7y ago
  I think you're almost certainly correct. The "giveaway" to someone from a Mormon background was the inclusion of "Monson led the committees that codified the doctrines taught in every Mormon meetinghouse across the Earth." in the article. This sentence probably sounds completely banal and uninteresting to outsiders, but the "correlation" process, as it is called, it largely hated by both the most fundamental believers AND the most rabid apostates. The believers hate it because it's watered down all the crazy (and frankly much more interesting) parts of Mormon doctrine, Ex-mormons hate it because it whitewashes away many uncomfortable historical truths. The institution is invested in it, however, as a way to try to stamp out the legacy of polygamy. Like you say, the point of this article is that there's a lot of "there" there, but it takes more digging to find that NYT was willing to invest.
  - lcall 7y ago
    For what it may be worth: As a lifelong member who knows many others and reads a lot, I am completely unaware of anyone hating correlation. It has never come up in any conversation or thing I have read, until now that I see your comment. On the other hand, I am aware of tremendous amounts of original historical source materials and information on many topics that have been published and made freely available on the 'net, to anyone, including about experiences and statistics around polygamy and many other things). When I compare the journals I have read (handed down) and oral family history stories, personalities I have known, etc etc., with what I have seen of Church publicationis and online materials, I see nothing being whitewashed or hidden.

rayiner 7y ago

This article is spot on. New York Times stories are unable to engage on any subject in its own merits. Everything gets filtered through an increasingly narrow political lens. My wife and I belong to a church that disagrees with the LDS church in gay marriage and ordination of women. But I don’t want to read the obituary of someone like Monson and have it be about those two issues. There are 16 million Mormons. There is more to their world than those two issues. I don’t read the news to be given a set of talking points fitting into a particular narrative, even when I agree with the narrative. I want to understand the subject on its own terms. For my own part, as an immigrant from the third world, it’s maddening to read coverage of foreign events in the New York Times. You can’t understand what’s going on in the rest of the world through the lens of liberal New York politics.

aplummer 7y ago
> liberal New York politics I would: a) imagine something called the NY times to be somewhat skewed to NY. b) It’s only liberal in America. In any other first world country, it’s right wing.
- mc32 7y ago
  > imagine something called the NY times to be somewhat skewed to NY. That's not the reputation they sell when they call themselves the "Newspaper of Record"[1]. They also cultivate themselves as internationalists. They do not represent themselves ala NY Post (i.e. "hizzoner") [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_of_record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_of_record
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
  The rest of the world is much more conservative on social issues than America?
  - skissane 7y ago
    193 UN member states. How many have marriage equality? About 30. So, measured on that issue, the US is more liberal than approximately 85% of the countries in the world.

inertiatic 7y ago

Taken to an extreme, would you rather an obituary of Hitler not focus on a certain narrative as Nazi Germany numbered 100 million people and there certainly was more to their world than hating Jews?

benjohnson 7y ago
If I'm understanding correctly I would like an obituary of Hitler to be comprehensive - because with a broader context we could perhaps understand how he rose to power. Or understand how a politician can be so charismatic that the people ignore the deaths of their neighbors.
- TomMckenny 7y ago
  The NYT article _is_ comprehensive, covering most of what the blogger says it lacked. Which is probably why he did not actually link to it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...
dang 7y ago
Not this, please. The internet can't handle it. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876278.
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BadThink6655321 7y ago

Of three news articles of which I have first hand knowledge, two completely misreported facts. They were exercises in reinforcing a narrative - the truth be damned. The third was accurate, but it was over 45 years ago.

filmgirlcw 7y ago

There is an irony in a member of a church that had famously attempted to cover up all of the atrocities committed by its leadership, even going so far as buying forged documents it feared would expose the church to scorn — a church that goes after its critics in a way unrivaled by any other group, except perhaps the Catholic Church (and even then, pretty sure LDS has it beat), is complaining about an obituary in a secular paper not focusing on the party line, which in this case was “we were able to recruit a bunch of people to join Amway, er, the Mormon church” (that comparison is intentional), isn’t up to his standards. Also, anyone who doesn’t think that this obituary is completely ordinary for publications like the Times is mistaken. The obituary for John Paul the II saved the criticism for the end, granted, but look at the obituary for Cardinal Law [1]. And if anyone thinks that when Benedict dies (the Pope emeritus), the obit won’t lead with his controversies, I think they are wrong. It’s too soon to say what they’d lead with on Pope Francis, but I’m sure his controversies with the conservative parts of the church will be mentioned. Journalists aren’t your friends. And the role isn’t to write propaganda, which is exactly what this guy wants from an obituary. I’m sure the Deseret News was much more to his liking. And that’s the other part of journalism. When it thrives, there isn’t just one source. There are many different perspectives that can be shared. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/obituaries/cardinal-bernard-law-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/obituaries/cardinal-berna...

SahAssar 7y ago

The money-shot is in the last paragraph: > That is the lesson of this entire saga. The New York Times defends themselves in the name of journalism. They are journalists they tell us, not religious propagandists. And with that declaration they reveal the truth: to be a journalist is to write, and to write, and seek credit for what you write even though you know nothing about those things which you write about. The point of a journalist is not to write your perspective as a member of a group, it is to write as one outside a group. This person was expecting the article/comment/tweet to be written as if from that group, and that is not journalism, that's more like a documentary. Imagine if all journalistic articles were written from the perspective within that group, would that really be a more informational and educational read? If you disagree with how journalism sees your particular group then perhaps it's time to think about if this is how that grouping is actually seen from the outside. If there is a clear dissonance between how you see your group and how it's seen from the outside, ask yourself why that is.

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ardy42 7y ago
> The point of a journalist is not to write your perspective as a member of a group, it is to write as one outside a group. This person was expecting the article/comment/tweet to be written as if from that group, and that is not journalism, that's more like a documentary. There's actually a middle ground here. An obituary should really be a kind of capsule biography that explains someone how they're seen inside and outside their group. The NYT didn't to that, but rather they dwelled too much on a few controversies and almost entirely glossed over why and how he rose to the position he had. There's room for improvement in how they handled this.

fsh 7y ago

After having read the obituary, I fail to see anything wrong with it. The blog post does not give any factual errors, and the alleged omissions about the lifetime achievements of the deceased are actually in the NYT article. The article is also well sourced and the editorial shows a solid research and writing process. The blog post follows a dangerous trend, where people try to discredit the whole concept of journalism whenever they read something they don't like.

TomMckenny 7y ago
Exactly. The other force at work is rising religious-nationalism which makes it increasingly difficult for the press to speak ill of powerful people.
beatgammit 7y ago
IDK, I think we really need to have a discussion on what "journalism" means. Articles are becoming increasingly clickbait, and news agencies seem to be more biased than in the past. Perhaps the bias is just becoming more obvious and clickbait is just a natural consequence of increasing competition, but I'm finding it difficult to find news agencies that I can trust to report in an unbiased manner. I just want to subscribe to a few news organizations that have high journalistic standards so I can get a reasonably complete overview of a variety of current events. But I feel like I instead have to seek out news agencies with opposing biases and hope that I didn't miss a bias (e.g. have a conservative and liberal publication, but what about libertarian, green, etc?). Why can't I just subscribe to comprehensive journalism? I want to know all of the good and bad things about all sides of an issue, not just the side the author/news agency prefers. Don't tell me how was Monson is without telling me how good he is. Give me as many competing details and viewpoints as will fit in the space available and leave the subjectivity to the editorial section.
- fsh 7y ago
  I don't think that discussing about nebulous concepts such as "liberal bias" is any helpful. Do you have some examples where you felt that for example a NYT article was missing important information? Which details or viewpoints are missing from the obituary in your opinion?

Ste_Evans 7y ago

But if you and your wife belong to a church then you are delusional and have been duped. How can you accuse the NYT of having a political lens which distorts the "truth" when by the standards of empirical science you are essentially insane. The problem is that there are so many of you religiously insane people that you distort politics.Imagine how it is for us sane people to be ruled by a tyranny of the delusional majority.

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mindslight 7y ago
Speaking as an atheist, what is likely more "insane" is unhumbly writing off centuries of successful culture simply because it is phrased in terms of an imagined omnipresent being.
- Ste_Evans 7y ago
  I'm not sure the word "atheist" is necessary when we have the word "sane". The article is a religious person complaining about NYT seeing Mormonism through a particular lens. But if viewed objectively, the Mormon leader in the obituary was a criminal fraudster who told lies to get money. The only reason NYT don't write the full objective truth is because of the political power of religions based on the money they earn from criminal fraud. Humility is not required to point out that the Emperor has no Clothes. The culture of religions was made by humans, but the central tenets are lies to extort money. Organised religions are just a little more subtle and less violent, in some cases, than organised crime that's all. This is the reality, but the NYT journalists can't write it because they would be murdered if they did.
- Ste_Evans 7y ago
  There are 3 generally possible responses to the article. 1) You agree that the NYT is imposing some sort of a liberal filter on the Mormon leader's actions. 2) You think the NYT's position is reasonable. 3) Or, you think like me that the NYT should have pointed out that the Mormon leader had committed criminal fraud by lying to take money off people. It is my genuine view, but as you see here, if your view is 3) then it will be flagged.We are not allowed to say that the Emperor has no clothes.

ausbah 7y ago

It probably is the whole point of the article, but chastising the NYT for writing one perspective on a subject to promote an agenda then going and writing another differing perspective promoting a competing agenda is a bit contradictory. The author here bashes the NYT because they don't show what he sees as the "good" parts of the Mormon leader - coming from a Mormon perspective, but the whole reason they don't is because they are inherently competing perspectives. I think its also worth considering what exactly constitutes journalism and the audience a publication is writing for. An obituary isn't just a piece saying "X person is now deceased", it is more like "X person is now deceased AND here is a brief summary of their life". The former is strictly news, the later is news with somewhat subjective attachment (still has facts, but which ones you choose and in what order paint a certain picture). That somewhat subjective attachment is going to be dictated by the audience one is writing for, a liberal audience is going to get a liberal opinion (here painting the Mormon leader in a negative right) and vice versa for a Mormon audience. I do not think this is wrong, it is only natural - you just have to know when something is something is being used to have a specific slant (even when using facts). As for my opinion, Thomas Monson and the LDS church are backwards group of people whose influence in American society I am happy to see slowly piddle away.

beatgammit 7y ago
I don't understand why reporting "competing" information is a problem. I'm not reading a news piece to get the author's opinion on something, I'm reading a news piece to get enough information to form my own opinion on something. Therefore, I expect some good with the bad, and if I only get one or the other, the bias in the news organization becomes very clear and I'm less likely to continue reading their articles. For example, when reading about Trump's impeachment, I care not only about the evidence against him, but also his defense concerning that evidence and an idea of the strength of both sides of the argument. If a newspaper continually stresses one side of an argument, I'll stop reading that newspaper. I've been on the fence about the NYT, and stuff like this doesn't help my opinion about that paper. Obviously one article about a subject that isn't very relevant to most people won't be the only reason I'd avoid a paper, but it is telling that they're willing to stake their reputation on an apparently poorly researched obituary.

20191224234044 7y ago

As a Chinese person, I've often felt that since about 3-4 years ago, NYT's coverage of almost everything China has become increasingly biased, and is increasingly targeted not at the government but at making ordinary Chinese people's lives difficult. However, very few Western people care about this, since the reports fit in with the narrative that people are already antecedently inclined to accept. When it's something one likes to hear, truth can take a back seat (especially when the domain is not one in which it pays to know the truth - there's not a hard reality you can run into). Therefore I'm very pessimistic that reports like this could make any difference. Yes, every once in a while we read sth in our own domain of expertise, and we wonder how we could justify being so trustful of everything else we read. But eventually we will all go back to our old ways, especially when (i) what we read is what we like to read, and (ii) it's not a subject on which there's any 'hard reality' to bump into.

atlgator 7y ago

Journalism schools teach provocation. Look for the edge, look for the spin. There's no money in objectivity.

bubblesocks 7y ago
I didn't go to journalism school but I did take a couple of journalism classes as part of my writing degree. We were taught to be objective and not provocative in my classes.

hitekker 7y ago

An obituary that seems to have more journalistic integrity than the one the author objects to: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/mormon-prophet/549773/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/mormon-...

jstewartmobile 7y ago

This person is obviously not a disinterested party--yet still not wrong! I've done business in many different sectors over the years, and in every single one, the venality and nearsightedness of journalism was both strikingly obvious and aggressively exploited.

charliebrownau 7y ago

Its very clear from 2009-2019 that 99% of Western "Journalists" are Global Left wing activists brainwashed by the liberalism/diversity/multiculturalism/anti white narrative

TomMckenny 7y ago

Of course rather than taking a bloggers opinion of bias as fact, one could actually read the piece and see for oneself whether it is as outrageously biased as is claimed. Unfortunately, no doubt due to some oversight on the part of the blogger, the link to the original, rather than being with the top image, is actually pretty buried so here it is. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-dies.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

specialist 7y ago

Both NYT's and scholars-stage's obits are editorial. Only the news of Monson's passing is reporting. Neither did any journalism. -- Much as I dislike NYT (and by extension all corporate media), I'm unmoved by this criticism. scholars-stage defended a person he (she?) respected and published his (her?) own obit. That is right and proper.

mythrwy 7y ago

I agree journalists are often ill informed, agenda driven and misleading. In this case though what did they say that was untrue? The church and Monson did hold these views and continue to. Stand up proud about it if that's who you are. You can't have it both ways. If the complaint is a negative slant, well, that's modern agenda driven journalism apparently. Feel free not to subscribe or start your own paper. (Which they do). But don't expect positions contrary to the currently popular to be minimized in promotion of your niche in a major paper.