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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 pe

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.
- brandmeyer 7y ago
  The lesson is that readers don't distinguish between the news and opinion sections. The visual differences are extremely subtle, even more than paid search results.
- leftyted 7y ago
  I think there's a pattern here that's quite clear, in all parts of the paper. This article is certainly interesting: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/14/media/new-york-times-criticism/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/14/media/new-york-times-criticis... One Times employee is quoted: > the desire to "show and not tell" might be "well intentioned," but it is ineffective. "It puts a burden on readers and especially those who are maybe less savvy," the staffer explained. "And when the stakes are so high and so many people feel personally threatened and there's real danger in the air, the show don't tell approach feels inadequate." Anyway, it's interesting to me that I have ideology in common with the author of this article. We couldn't have more different backgrounds.
macintux 7y ago
> Same thing as the Times' 1619 project, which alleged that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the colonies. The Atlantic conveys a much more nuanced take on that in this very interesting piece[1]. It certainly seems plausible to me that part of the southern involvement in the Revolution was driven by that motive. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians...
geofft 7y ago
> 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. Do you disagree with these claims because you think they're factually wrong, or because you don't like them ideologically?
- leftyted 7y ago
  There's two arguments here, 1. whether the claims are factual and 2. whether the Times is "forcing events and personalities into a narrow, pre-conceived frame that bore little relation to the reality before him". My post focused on 2.
  - geofft 7y ago
    I don't think that you can force much of anything into a frame that bears little relation to reality if the thing you're forcing is, in fact, reality. It is certainly reasonable to criticize a journalist or journalistic organization for only pursuing stories of a particular ideological bent, but it's quite different to accuse them of pursuing incorrect stories. If you mean to only do the former, then I misinterpreted what you meant.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. There's a discussion to be had that stays on the right side of the flame line; let's have that. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21875566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21875566 and marked it off-topic.

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.

brandmeyer 7y ago
The lesson is that readers don't distinguish between the news and opinion sections. The visual differences are extremely subtle, even more than paid search results.
leftyted 7y ago
I think there's a pattern here that's quite clear, in all parts of the paper. This article is certainly interesting: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/14/media/new-york-times-criticism/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/14/media/new-york-times-criticis... One Times employee is quoted: > the desire to "show and not tell" might be "well intentioned," but it is ineffective. "It puts a burden on readers and especially those who are maybe less savvy," the staffer explained. "And when the stakes are so high and so many people feel personally threatened and there's real danger in the air, the show don't tell approach feels inadequate." Anyway, it's interesting to me that I have ideology in common with the author of this article. We couldn't have more different backgrounds.

macintux 7y ago

> Same thing as the Times' 1619 project, which alleged that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the colonies. The Atlantic conveys a much more nuanced take on that in this very interesting piece[1]. It certainly seems plausible to me that part of the southern involvement in the Revolution was driven by that motive. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians-clash-1619-project/604093/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians...

geofft 7y ago

> 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. Do you disagree with these claims because you think they're factually wrong, or because you don't like them ideologically?

leftyted 7y ago
There's two arguments here, 1. whether the claims are factual and 2. whether the Times is "forcing events and personalities into a narrow, pre-conceived frame that bore little relation to the reality before him". My post focused on 2.
- geofft 7y ago
  I don't think that you can force much of anything into a frame that bears little relation to reality if the thing you're forcing is, in fact, reality. It is certainly reasonable to criticize a journalist or journalistic organization for only pursuing stories of a particular ideological bent, but it's quite different to accuse them of pursuing incorrect stories. If you mean to only do the former, then I misinterpreted what you meant.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dang 7y ago

Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. There's a discussion to be had that stays on the right side of the flame line; let's have that. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21875566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21875566 and marked it off-topic.