4 ms·

If the opinion section isn't fact checked, why would you believe the premise that results in call for advocacy is correct?

ardy42 6y ago
> If the opinion section isn't fact checked, why would you believe the premise that results in call for advocacy is correct? You're just plain wrong that it isn't fact checked. Read this description of their process from a previous NYT Op-ed editor. Emphasis is mine. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.htm...: > What happens when your article is accepted? First, you’ll get a contract giving us the right to publish it and laying out some of your responsibilities. The most important ones have to do with originality and truthfulness. You can’t plagiarize yourself, or someone else, and we won’t run something that has appeared in another publication, either print or digital. We request that you disclose anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise: Did you invest in a company that you praise in passing? Did you once work with a public official you mention in flattering or critical terms? Could you or an organization or company you represent benefit from the stance you take in an Op-Ed? We need to know. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out your article on that basis — in most cases it just means disclosing the relationship to the reader. We also need all of the material that supports the facts in your story. That’s the biggest surprise to some people. Yes, we do fact check. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and when we do we correct them. But the facts in a piece must be supported and validated. You can have any opinion you would like, but you can’t say that a certain battle began on a certain day if it did not.
- anotherman554 6y ago
  I'm pretty skeptical about that quote, here's Coumbia Jounalism Review in 2008: "The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. " https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/opeds_and_factchecking_1.php https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/opeds_and_factcheckin...
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > "The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. " Less fact checking is not no fact checking. That article also cites errors (e.g. misattributing one conservative pundit for another), but you're claiming fabrication (made up accounts), which is a far graver thing. Also, that article dates from 2008, and the article I quoted is from 2013, five years later.

ardy42 6y ago

> If the opinion section isn't fact checked, why would you believe the premise that results in call for advocacy is correct? You're just plain wrong that it isn't fact checked. Read this description of their process from a previous NYT Op-ed editor. Emphasis is mine. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.htm...: > What happens when your article is accepted? First, you’ll get a contract giving us the right to publish it and laying out some of your responsibilities. The most important ones have to do with originality and truthfulness. You can’t plagiarize yourself, or someone else, and we won’t run something that has appeared in another publication, either print or digital. We request that you disclose anything that might be seen as a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise: Did you invest in a company that you praise in passing? Did you once work with a public official you mention in flattering or critical terms? Could you or an organization or company you represent benefit from the stance you take in an Op-Ed? We need to know. That doesn’t mean we’ll throw out your article on that basis — in most cases it just means disclosing the relationship to the reader. We also need all of the material that supports the facts in your story. That’s the biggest surprise to some people. Yes, we do fact check. Do we do it perfectly? Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes, and when we do we correct them. But the facts in a piece must be supported and validated. You can have any opinion you would like, but you can’t say that a certain battle began on a certain day if it did not.

anotherman554 6y ago
I'm pretty skeptical about that quote, here's Coumbia Jounalism Review in 2008: "The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. " https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/opeds_and_factchecking_1.php https://archives.cjr.org/campaign_desk/opeds_and_factcheckin...
- ardy42 6y ago
  > "The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. " Less fact checking is not no fact checking. That article also cites errors (e.g. misattributing one conservative pundit for another), but you're claiming fabrication (made up accounts), which is a far graver thing. Also, that article dates from 2008, and the article I quoted is from 2013, five years later.