6 ms·

The story has not been published yet, though a review of the whole situation was published in the New Yorker [1] that has been met with mixed reviews, but large

The story has not been published yet, though a review of the whole situation was published in the New Yorker [1] that has been met with mixed reviews, but largely positive from what I have seen (mostly from followers of the blog, strangely). You can check the subreddit for more info on how things have been going down, I peeked in a few days ago and got caught up on all this. [1] : https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/slate-star-codex-and-silicon-valleys-war-against-the-media https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/slate-st...

User23 6y ago
I think that their recent experience with Tucker Carlson has gotten the NYT staff to reconsider the relative merits of doxxing the subjects of their articles. It's a most double-edged sword, and they will cut themselves if they keep swinging it around.
- baryphonic 6y ago
  I have to imagine the NYT staff, as biased and (IMO) as poor as they are at news-writing, must take no pleasure in being asked to doxx subjects of their stories on the arbitrary and capricious whims of management. Most journalists I know are good people, even when they perpetuate a bad system. They tend to be quite left and sometimes (many times) blindly biased, yet pursuit of the truth is the main goal for the bulk of journalists. Most editors, by contrast, seem genuinely terrible. They thwart honest journalists at every opportunity to sell something fake but salacious. (Something similar can be observed about academia and the faculty vis-a-vis the deans and university administration.) I imagine many in the NYT are looking at Carlson or Scott Alexander and are saying, "hmm, would I want my own personal details published?"
  - messick 6y ago
    Fortunately, Tucker’s bullshit outrage is being seen for the bullshit it is, and his sexual harassment escapades are getting even more widely reported. Hopefully his totally planned in advance last second fishing trip gets extended to a permanent basis.
  - bananaface 6y ago
    Not been my experience. I don't know many journalists but every one I do know is a horrible person. They all relish the idea of a salacious story.
    - appleflaxen 6y ago
      > They all relish the idea of a salacious story. Does that make you a horrible person? It's not the most flattering character trait, but in my experience, all of humanity has some appetite for the salacious.
      - bananaface 6y ago
        I meant them as independent observations. But yes, throwing people under the bus for clicks is awful in my opinion.
    - majewsky 6y ago
      Without dismissing your experience, I want to offer a counter-anecdote. I'm occasionally doing PR for a local branch of the Chaos Computer Club, a German NGO that's like a mashup of the EFF and a hackerspace network. I encounter journalists when they ask me to appear on a radio show or give soundbites for a TV segment. My experiences have all been positive so far. The journalists that I have worked with appreciate that I can present technical topics in a succinct manner that's understandable to their audience. And I haven't had any experiences where they tried to twist my words during editing, though admittedly I haven't talked to them about particularly politically charged topics yet. (Most engagements were for segments that gave general advice on data protection and IT security.)
    - tempthrow4938 6y ago
      I have known a few journalists and my impression is that the profession attracts sadistic narcissists. The narcissism allows them to justify their sadism as some sort of "higher cause" in the interest of "journalism." It's a low-pay and low-status occupation, yet many have convinced themselves that they are important to "democracy" - which is ludicrous, as virtually all modern journalism is simply transparent partisan propaganda. Tech journalism is nearly just as bad, but at least many of them seem well aware their real job is simply advertising products for their sponsors under a false pose of objectivity.
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    Yup. NYT is in the middle of it's very own civil war. The old blood are being pushed out by new journalists who are moral vacuums. I didn't believe it at first, but doxxing? No way are they the same paper.
    - pantaloony 6y ago
      Yeah, why don’t they get back to helping lie us into wars like the good old days? People surprised that most-bordering-on-all news outlets are fairly awful have short memories.
- _djo_ 6y ago
  Was there ever actually any evidence that the NYT was about to reveal Carlson's address? The paper has denied any intention to do so, and Carlson's wording was ambiguous.
  - Natsu 6y ago
    I don't know of any direct evidence, but my understanding is that Tucker met reporters reporting on him at his new residence. For context, they moved a while back because they had a crowd of protesters beating on his door and terrifying his wife & kids, who hid in a closet and called 911.
- moultano 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/NYTimesPR/status/1285422802569441282?s=19 https://twitter.com/NYTimesPR/status/1285422802569441282?s=1...
- YawningAngel 6y ago
  Could you clarify the situation with Tucker Carlson? My understanding was that, although he has claimed they intended to publish his home address, they have not thus far done so.
  - User23 6y ago
    As far as I know that's accurate. Additionally the NYT is denying they were ever planning to do so. My personal interpretation is that Tucker's statement is more or less true and his reading off the names of everyone allegedly involved at the NYT and implicitly threatening to doxx them on the most watched cable news program in the country was an effective deterrent that caused the Tucker address story to get killed. I also believe that the NYT statement lacks candor and that their denying there ever was such a story is a face saving measure. I freely admit there are other interpretations that fit the publicly available facts and that others may believe otherwise while being intellectually honest. I actually find observing my own cognitive biases at work more interesting than the underlying story. I know for a fact that my interpretation is driven to some greater or lesser extent by my own confirmation bias. Sadly, being aware of one's own cognitive biases doesn't generally counter the effect. The best I can do is to try to keep an eye on the facts and at least limit myself to beliefs that don't contradict them. For example, why do I believe that the NYT statement is dishonest but the Tucker statement is honest? Firstly of course my cognitive bias runs that way. However I do believe the circumstantial evidence really does support my belief. Tucker was able to name the specific people involved in the alleged cancelled story which implies that either there was a cancelled story or he just made up some names. Edit: Added some elaboration.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      > For example, why do I believe that the NYT statement is dishonest but the Tucker statement is honest? Because Tucker Carson says all sorts of racist dog-whistle stuff? And, I don’t know if Carlson apologizes or officially retracts statements when they’re proven false but I know The NY Times makes a consistent effort to do so. And, Carlson is a talking head and The NY Times is a newspaper that has one of the stronger reputations for fact checking?
  - 6y ago
- charlesarthur 6y ago
  There's absolutely no evidence that the NYT intended to publish Carlson's home address. You only need to think for a moment to realise it's completely not what it does - what do you think the reporters are, walking around wearing Vendetta masks and shouting "EXPECT US"? You should also be able to consider the logical possibility that Carlson was talking bollocks. And then weigh the two possibilities against each other: NYT doing something that it never does (please cite last time you saw it give someone's full home address, rather than "tidy suburb in Pensacola") v Carlson spouting bollocks. Dismaying that there are people who would lack so little logical capability to be found on what I thought was a site for coders.
lordgrenville 6y ago
I was told by the author of the New Yorker piece that the article is still on track. I don't think they paused it because of the controversy, these things just take longer than people think.

User23 6y ago

I think that their recent experience with Tucker Carlson has gotten the NYT staff to reconsider the relative merits of doxxing the subjects of their articles. It's a most double-edged sword, and they will cut themselves if they keep swinging it around.

baryphonic 6y ago
I have to imagine the NYT staff, as biased and (IMO) as poor as they are at news-writing, must take no pleasure in being asked to doxx subjects of their stories on the arbitrary and capricious whims of management. Most journalists I know are good people, even when they perpetuate a bad system. They tend to be quite left and sometimes (many times) blindly biased, yet pursuit of the truth is the main goal for the bulk of journalists. Most editors, by contrast, seem genuinely terrible. They thwart honest journalists at every opportunity to sell something fake but salacious. (Something similar can be observed about academia and the faculty vis-a-vis the deans and university administration.) I imagine many in the NYT are looking at Carlson or Scott Alexander and are saying, "hmm, would I want my own personal details published?"
- messick 6y ago
  Fortunately, Tucker’s bullshit outrage is being seen for the bullshit it is, and his sexual harassment escapades are getting even more widely reported. Hopefully his totally planned in advance last second fishing trip gets extended to a permanent basis.
- bananaface 6y ago
  Not been my experience. I don't know many journalists but every one I do know is a horrible person. They all relish the idea of a salacious story.
  - appleflaxen 6y ago
    > They all relish the idea of a salacious story. Does that make you a horrible person? It's not the most flattering character trait, but in my experience, all of humanity has some appetite for the salacious.
    - bananaface 6y ago
      I meant them as independent observations. But yes, throwing people under the bus for clicks is awful in my opinion.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    Without dismissing your experience, I want to offer a counter-anecdote. I'm occasionally doing PR for a local branch of the Chaos Computer Club, a German NGO that's like a mashup of the EFF and a hackerspace network. I encounter journalists when they ask me to appear on a radio show or give soundbites for a TV segment. My experiences have all been positive so far. The journalists that I have worked with appreciate that I can present technical topics in a succinct manner that's understandable to their audience. And I haven't had any experiences where they tried to twist my words during editing, though admittedly I haven't talked to them about particularly politically charged topics yet. (Most engagements were for segments that gave general advice on data protection and IT security.)
  - tempthrow4938 6y ago
    I have known a few journalists and my impression is that the profession attracts sadistic narcissists. The narcissism allows them to justify their sadism as some sort of "higher cause" in the interest of "journalism." It's a low-pay and low-status occupation, yet many have convinced themselves that they are important to "democracy" - which is ludicrous, as virtually all modern journalism is simply transparent partisan propaganda. Tech journalism is nearly just as bad, but at least many of them seem well aware their real job is simply advertising products for their sponsors under a false pose of objectivity.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  Yup. NYT is in the middle of it's very own civil war. The old blood are being pushed out by new journalists who are moral vacuums. I didn't believe it at first, but doxxing? No way are they the same paper.
  - pantaloony 6y ago
    Yeah, why don’t they get back to helping lie us into wars like the good old days? People surprised that most-bordering-on-all news outlets are fairly awful have short memories.
_djo_ 6y ago
Was there ever actually any evidence that the NYT was about to reveal Carlson's address? The paper has denied any intention to do so, and Carlson's wording was ambiguous.
- Natsu 6y ago
  I don't know of any direct evidence, but my understanding is that Tucker met reporters reporting on him at his new residence. For context, they moved a while back because they had a crowd of protesters beating on his door and terrifying his wife & kids, who hid in a closet and called 911.
moultano 6y ago
https://twitter.com/NYTimesPR/status/1285422802569441282?s=19 https://twitter.com/NYTimesPR/status/1285422802569441282?s=1...
YawningAngel 6y ago
Could you clarify the situation with Tucker Carlson? My understanding was that, although he has claimed they intended to publish his home address, they have not thus far done so.
- User23 6y ago
  As far as I know that's accurate. Additionally the NYT is denying they were ever planning to do so. My personal interpretation is that Tucker's statement is more or less true and his reading off the names of everyone allegedly involved at the NYT and implicitly threatening to doxx them on the most watched cable news program in the country was an effective deterrent that caused the Tucker address story to get killed. I also believe that the NYT statement lacks candor and that their denying there ever was such a story is a face saving measure. I freely admit there are other interpretations that fit the publicly available facts and that others may believe otherwise while being intellectually honest. I actually find observing my own cognitive biases at work more interesting than the underlying story. I know for a fact that my interpretation is driven to some greater or lesser extent by my own confirmation bias. Sadly, being aware of one's own cognitive biases doesn't generally counter the effect. The best I can do is to try to keep an eye on the facts and at least limit myself to beliefs that don't contradict them. For example, why do I believe that the NYT statement is dishonest but the Tucker statement is honest? Firstly of course my cognitive bias runs that way. However I do believe the circumstantial evidence really does support my belief. Tucker was able to name the specific people involved in the alleged cancelled story which implies that either there was a cancelled story or he just made up some names. Edit: Added some elaboration.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    > For example, why do I believe that the NYT statement is dishonest but the Tucker statement is honest? Because Tucker Carson says all sorts of racist dog-whistle stuff? And, I don’t know if Carlson apologizes or officially retracts statements when they’re proven false but I know The NY Times makes a consistent effort to do so. And, Carlson is a talking head and The NY Times is a newspaper that has one of the stronger reputations for fact checking?
- 6y ago
charlesarthur 6y ago
There's absolutely no evidence that the NYT intended to publish Carlson's home address. You only need to think for a moment to realise it's completely not what it does - what do you think the reporters are, walking around wearing Vendetta masks and shouting "EXPECT US"? You should also be able to consider the logical possibility that Carlson was talking bollocks. And then weigh the two possibilities against each other: NYT doing something that it never does (please cite last time you saw it give someone's full home address, rather than "tidy suburb in Pensacola") v Carlson spouting bollocks. Dismaying that there are people who would lack so little logical capability to be found on what I thought was a site for coders.

lordgrenville 6y ago

I was told by the author of the New Yorker piece that the article is still on track. I don't think they paused it because of the controversy, these things just take longer than people think.