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Has anyone noticed the emergence of axios.com articles trending on HackerNews in the last week? Is this being engineered or is it because of the Trump intervie

Has anyone noticed the emergence of axios.com articles trending on HackerNews in the last week? Is this being engineered or is it because of the Trump interview on Axios?

themodelplumber 6y ago
I'm not sure what the cause is, but I could imagine that the interview kind of exploded their visibility, especially in the US.
exdsq 6y ago
Random spot check and they all seem to be shared by users with high karma, so I think the site is just more popular? And it’s not some sort of marketing push by them.
- munchbunny 6y ago
  They’ve been around for a few years with really solid (in my opinion) daily email news digests, and the in depth reporting they’ve done seems solid too, so I generally trust what they publish.
  - adsjhdashkj 6y ago
    How would you rate them to APNews or Economist?
    - munchbunny 6y ago
      Do you mean trustworthiness? APNews is only good for the fact that something happened, not for any degree of interpretation, and you have to be on your guard for what isn't being said and what facts haven't been mentioned. The Economist is different because they talk about only a few things and usually add a whole lot of opinion, but when I do dig deeper I find that they generally take defensible stances even if there are problems with their arguments. And if Hacker News is any indication, you'll never be able to assert anything with confidence, however well researched, without someone else asserting the exact opposite with more confidence. My experience with Axios is that they generally avoid taking editorial positions that are obviously partisan, though they are clearly left of center on the American political spectrum (then again, I think America's current political spectrum has moved so much that the bounds of reality are now mostly left of center). When I dig deeper, I usually find that they aren't guilty of selectively presenting information. Their business model is still ad driven, so they are not immune to the classic problems of money influencing news, so I still view Axios with default skepticism.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - bredren 6y ago
      Too early to tell, though the brand feels more modern and digital.
  - bredren 6y ago
    Yep. They’ve been publishing seriously for a while now but it is hard to break through. I wondered if it was a conservative publication at the start. But they did the Swan / Trump interview and now I think the brand is on the map.
- zo1 6y ago
  It is a bit odd from my perspective because I have not seen/heard of "Axios" until this "Trump Interview" thing happened. So I understand the OP's bafflement at it's prominence all of a sudden. Even the fact that they got an interview with the US president seems out of place to me.
  - rurp 6y ago
    I've been reading the site regularly for a few years and seen them (often Swan) break a lot of Inside Baseball type stories on the White House, which I take to mean that they have some pretty high level sources. They also do occasional stories that look like obvious beat-sweateners[0], likely to keep that access flowing. Overall I'd say it's a pretty good source for non-partisan news. [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=beat%20sweetener https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=beat%20sweet...
- adventured 6y ago
  Axios has no paywall, which considerably bolsters the shareability as it pertains to HN. Reuters stories also fill that role now, as eg Bloomberg and many other prominent news sources have clamped down hard on their non-paywalled content.
HumblyTossed 6y ago
> Is this being engineered or is it because of the Trump interview on Axios? Are these the only two possible reasons to choose from?
- rvz 6y ago
  There's a Trump-related medical condition which always surfaces when a person is fuelled with conspiracy and suspicion towards him in everyday life. I can't think of its name.
epistasis 6y ago
Using HN's search with the term axios.com, I see lots of articles from months and years ago, some with massive point totals. I don't think this week is much different from the past.
Ensorceled 6y ago
I think you're actually just experiencing the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

Has anyone noticed the emergence of axios.com articles trending on HackerNews in the last week? Is this being engineered or is it because of the Trump interview on Axios?

themodelplumber 6y ago

I'm not sure what the cause is, but I could imagine that the interview kind of exploded their visibility, especially in the US.

exdsq 6y ago

Random spot check and they all seem to be shared by users with high karma, so I think the site is just more popular? And it’s not some sort of marketing push by them.

munchbunny 6y ago
They’ve been around for a few years with really solid (in my opinion) daily email news digests, and the in depth reporting they’ve done seems solid too, so I generally trust what they publish.
- adsjhdashkj 6y ago
  How would you rate them to APNews or Economist?
  - munchbunny 6y ago
    Do you mean trustworthiness? APNews is only good for the fact that something happened, not for any degree of interpretation, and you have to be on your guard for what isn't being said and what facts haven't been mentioned. The Economist is different because they talk about only a few things and usually add a whole lot of opinion, but when I do dig deeper I find that they generally take defensible stances even if there are problems with their arguments. And if Hacker News is any indication, you'll never be able to assert anything with confidence, however well researched, without someone else asserting the exact opposite with more confidence. My experience with Axios is that they generally avoid taking editorial positions that are obviously partisan, though they are clearly left of center on the American political spectrum (then again, I think America's current political spectrum has moved so much that the bounds of reality are now mostly left of center). When I dig deeper, I usually find that they aren't guilty of selectively presenting information. Their business model is still ad driven, so they are not immune to the classic problems of money influencing news, so I still view Axios with default skepticism.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - bredren 6y ago
    Too early to tell, though the brand feels more modern and digital.
- bredren 6y ago
  Yep. They’ve been publishing seriously for a while now but it is hard to break through. I wondered if it was a conservative publication at the start. But they did the Swan / Trump interview and now I think the brand is on the map.
zo1 6y ago
It is a bit odd from my perspective because I have not seen/heard of "Axios" until this "Trump Interview" thing happened. So I understand the OP's bafflement at it's prominence all of a sudden. Even the fact that they got an interview with the US president seems out of place to me.
- rurp 6y ago
  I've been reading the site regularly for a few years and seen them (often Swan) break a lot of Inside Baseball type stories on the White House, which I take to mean that they have some pretty high level sources. They also do occasional stories that look like obvious beat-sweateners[0], likely to keep that access flowing. Overall I'd say it's a pretty good source for non-partisan news. [0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=beat%20sweetener https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=beat%20sweet...
adventured 6y ago
Axios has no paywall, which considerably bolsters the shareability as it pertains to HN. Reuters stories also fill that role now, as eg Bloomberg and many other prominent news sources have clamped down hard on their non-paywalled content.

HumblyTossed 6y ago

> Is this being engineered or is it because of the Trump interview on Axios? Are these the only two possible reasons to choose from?

rvz 6y ago
There's a Trump-related medical condition which always surfaces when a person is fuelled with conspiracy and suspicion towards him in everyday life. I can't think of its name.

epistasis 6y ago

Using HN's search with the term axios.com, I see lots of articles from months and years ago, some with massive point totals. I don't think this week is much different from the past.

Ensorceled 6y ago

I think you're actually just experiencing the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.