8 ms·

> As I remember the series, they presented pro and con arguments about believing him near the beginning, and never expressed certainty that it was true, but fel

> As I remember the series, they presented pro and con arguments about believing him near the beginning, and never expressed certainty that it was true, but felt it was likely enough true that it was worth reporting. I remember this, too, and it's the second part I take issue with. A judgment call of "likely enough true" when the reality is "entirely fictional" points, in my opinion, to either a lack of judgment, or a lack of journalistic ethics. As others have pointed out, very basic fact-checking was all that was needed to figure out this guy was a complete fraud. We should not be praising the New York Times for letting its standards slip because the story was so cool, then eventually - years later! - realizing they'd let them slip a little too much and half-heartedly apologizing.

bumby 6y ago
What’s your opinion on their incentives for letting that quality control slip? The need for sexy digital content to remain relevant? Cost-cutting to remain competitive? A change in identity from “news” to “entertainment”? Something else?
- fastball 6y ago
  All of the above? Throw in corrupted management that doesn't realize you can't coast on an old reputation forever, and if you keep letting quality slide eventually there will be a watershed moment. As an aside, I think you can see this happening in California right now. California (and more specifically SF) has been winning for so long that now public officials have drunk their own cool-aid and seem to think Cali/SF is some sort of magic place and it's all the things they've done which have made it tech mecca. Except probably it's not, and that will become obvious as everyone slowly wakes up to that.
- kergonath 6y ago
  The podcast was an experiment at the time, and the people making it were outside the structure in which the print journalists were operating. The story was sexy, guard rails were not entirely in place, and everyone was enthusiastic about making the podcast so they overlook details they shouldn't have. They touch upon this here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphate-chaudhry-hoax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphat...
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    A podcast has a written script just like a story in the paper. NYT has editors and fact checkers. There's no excuse for this; the organization failed to justify its claim to be the "paper of record".
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      Yes, but from what I heard from my parents (who are ex-editor of major publications) there was a lot of skepticism from bureau chiefs on the war beat. The NYT is a diverse organization and there are factions.
    - kergonath 6y ago
      Different department in the company; different procedures. The podcast was handled outside the standard hierarchy because they wanted to experiment and out of the turf wars. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but apparently that's how it was.
- AndrewBissell 6y ago
  I noticed a sort of almost prurient interest in salacious details about ISIS among liberals around the time the podcast came out, so I think that was part of it, they just knew something along these lines would be popular and sell. (Conservatives may have had much the same interest, I don't know, but if they did they weren't going to the NYT to get their fix.) The "ISIS as unconscionable bogeyman" story also helped sell the U.S. intervention in Syria, which was an ongoing objective on the NYT's part.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    NYT has been a war hawk for both D and R administration going back at least to 2000.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      Well before 2000, since at least the Gulf War
- 0x1F8B 6y ago
  Callimachi was an absolute rockstar at the paper. She had been nominated for multiple Pulitzer Prizes and this, amongst other things, would lead to another nom. I suspect there was a deference to a veteran reporter at the top of her game, a feeling of sunk cost and risk analysis that said "this is so good that we have to publish it". I think it was a case of the NYT quite openly deluding themselves.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  I don't know exactly what combination of factors have led to the decline in reliability of the NY Times, but it's been very noticeable, particularly since Trump was elected. A year ago, Slate published a transcript of an all-hands meeting, which gives some insight into the thinking of people at the paper.[1] One of the things the executive editor, Dean Baquet, says in the transcript is that the NY Times is going to try to find a racial angle to as much of its coverage as possible. To me, it looks like the NY Times is trying to rebrand itself. Other people here have mentioned the 1619 Project, which is a good example of how brand has undermined reliability. The project made some sweeping claims about American history that were clearly wrong on a basic factual level. Some of the most famous historians who study the periods in question objected, but were more or less brushed off by the Times. This includes historians whom, not so long ago, the NY Times lavished praise upon in its book reviews. But just a few years later, the NY Times is dismissing them and backing its own shoddy - but heavily advertised (they even made an Academy Awards commercial for it [2]) - historical articles. 1. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/new-york-times-meeting-transcript.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/new-york-times-m... 2. https://youtu.be/G1imfEXKaeM https://youtu.be/G1imfEXKaeM
  - medium_burrito 6y ago
    I would say there's been a decline in American media since Bush the younger. As a kid the NYT and WSJ were both quite good. The WSJ sucks off the Republican party and the NYT publishes a bunch of crap. Neither really gets to the root of problems in the country. For an internal publication the economist has definitely slipped. FT under Japanese ownership meanwhile is still quite solid.
    - tertius 6y ago
      As a kid I couldn't see the political motivations and BS the media was peddling. Rose-tinted corneas slowly fading over time the more I could argue and see nuance.
    - paganel 6y ago
      > For an internal publication the economist has definitely slipped. FT under Japanese ownership meanwhile is still quite solid. Glad that some other HN-er has also noticed that. I've been an Economist reader for about 15 years now, and lately (the last 3-4 years, maybe?) I've started to notice that slippage you mention. Among the most obvious cases for me was that "Corbyn as Lenin" front-page [1], which was absolutely disgraceful (if it matters I'm not an UK citizen and I don't particularly fancy Corbyn nor his policies), plus many of their Trump articles have been also pretty disgraceful, at least according to the Economist standards (the comic from one of the latest issues sends Trump directly to the garbage bin? like, what the hell is that?). For comparison, I find the FT quite unchanged, and that's good. [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPHN3Z5WIAANXkw.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPHN3Z5WIAANXkw.png
- DubiousPusher 6y ago
  I don't think it needs that much explanation. The New York Times and other institutional press have often done this same thing. Which is, they report from "credible" sources without physical evidence of any kind. A source is considered credible by how much clout it carries with other major institutions or because of a history of trust. i.e. Even though intelligence and the military get things wrong all the time even to the point of outright lying, they are "credible". This has lead them astray many times in much more significant matters. Once reported, they treat contrary evidence as innuendo in all but the most severe cases of contrary evidence. I think they only bothered with a significant retraction effort here because the evidence of their error was so compelling and public.
balfirevic 6y ago
> A judgment call of "likely enough true" when the reality is "entirely fictional" points, in my opinion, to either a lack of judgment Completely justified and reasonable judgement that something is "likely to be true" can be sometimes be incorrect because that's what the word "likely" means.
- ivraatiems 6y ago
  I disagree. "Likely" is a probability statement, not an escape valve. If I say "it is likely the sky will be purple tomorrow", and then it is not, I still must answer: Why did I think it was likely? That's a judgment call.
  - hitekker 6y ago
    > "Likely" is a probability statement, not an escape valve. This is a good warning that we ought to be more mindful of.
freewilly1040 6y ago
What was half hearted about the apology?
- ivraatiems 6y ago
  Callimachi's apology on Twitter[1] is itself okay, I think. It's the NYT article[2] that I read as weirdly congratulatory/"look how committed to journalism we are!" while discussing a fairly massive journalistic failure. [1] https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1339956839082037250 https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1339956839082037250 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/business/media/new-york-times-caliphate-podcast.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/business/media/new-york-t...
ehsankia 6y ago
I would agree if it was a NYT column entirely about him, but this was a podcast talking about the ins and out of ISIS and exploring the process of investigation. I would argue that Chaudhry was just one part of the story, and his purpose was actually to show how hard it is to verify facts when it comes to ISIS.

bumby 6y ago

What’s your opinion on their incentives for letting that quality control slip? The need for sexy digital content to remain relevant? Cost-cutting to remain competitive? A change in identity from “news” to “entertainment”? Something else?

fastball 6y ago
All of the above? Throw in corrupted management that doesn't realize you can't coast on an old reputation forever, and if you keep letting quality slide eventually there will be a watershed moment. As an aside, I think you can see this happening in California right now. California (and more specifically SF) has been winning for so long that now public officials have drunk their own cool-aid and seem to think Cali/SF is some sort of magic place and it's all the things they've done which have made it tech mecca. Except probably it's not, and that will become obvious as everyone slowly wakes up to that.
kergonath 6y ago
The podcast was an experiment at the time, and the people making it were outside the structure in which the print journalists were operating. The story was sexy, guard rails were not entirely in place, and everyone was enthusiastic about making the podcast so they overlook details they shouldn't have. They touch upon this here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphate-chaudhry-hoax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphat...
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  A podcast has a written script just like a story in the paper. NYT has editors and fact checkers. There's no excuse for this; the organization failed to justify its claim to be the "paper of record".
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Yes, but from what I heard from my parents (who are ex-editor of major publications) there was a lot of skepticism from bureau chiefs on the war beat. The NYT is a diverse organization and there are factions.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    Different department in the company; different procedures. The podcast was handled outside the standard hierarchy because they wanted to experiment and out of the turf wars. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but apparently that's how it was.
AndrewBissell 6y ago
I noticed a sort of almost prurient interest in salacious details about ISIS among liberals around the time the podcast came out, so I think that was part of it, they just knew something along these lines would be popular and sell. (Conservatives may have had much the same interest, I don't know, but if they did they weren't going to the NYT to get their fix.) The "ISIS as unconscionable bogeyman" story also helped sell the U.S. intervention in Syria, which was an ongoing objective on the NYT's part.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  NYT has been a war hawk for both D and R administration going back at least to 2000.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Well before 2000, since at least the Gulf War
0x1F8B 6y ago
Callimachi was an absolute rockstar at the paper. She had been nominated for multiple Pulitzer Prizes and this, amongst other things, would lead to another nom. I suspect there was a deference to a veteran reporter at the top of her game, a feeling of sunk cost and risk analysis that said "this is so good that we have to publish it". I think it was a case of the NYT quite openly deluding themselves.
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
I don't know exactly what combination of factors have led to the decline in reliability of the NY Times, but it's been very noticeable, particularly since Trump was elected. A year ago, Slate published a transcript of an all-hands meeting, which gives some insight into the thinking of people at the paper.[1] One of the things the executive editor, Dean Baquet, says in the transcript is that the NY Times is going to try to find a racial angle to as much of its coverage as possible. To me, it looks like the NY Times is trying to rebrand itself. Other people here have mentioned the 1619 Project, which is a good example of how brand has undermined reliability. The project made some sweeping claims about American history that were clearly wrong on a basic factual level. Some of the most famous historians who study the periods in question objected, but were more or less brushed off by the Times. This includes historians whom, not so long ago, the NY Times lavished praise upon in its book reviews. But just a few years later, the NY Times is dismissing them and backing its own shoddy - but heavily advertised (they even made an Academy Awards commercial for it [2]) - historical articles. 1. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/new-york-times-meeting-transcript.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/new-york-times-m... 2. https://youtu.be/G1imfEXKaeM https://youtu.be/G1imfEXKaeM
- medium_burrito 6y ago
  I would say there's been a decline in American media since Bush the younger. As a kid the NYT and WSJ were both quite good. The WSJ sucks off the Republican party and the NYT publishes a bunch of crap. Neither really gets to the root of problems in the country. For an internal publication the economist has definitely slipped. FT under Japanese ownership meanwhile is still quite solid.
  - tertius 6y ago
    As a kid I couldn't see the political motivations and BS the media was peddling. Rose-tinted corneas slowly fading over time the more I could argue and see nuance.
  - paganel 6y ago
    > For an internal publication the economist has definitely slipped. FT under Japanese ownership meanwhile is still quite solid. Glad that some other HN-er has also noticed that. I've been an Economist reader for about 15 years now, and lately (the last 3-4 years, maybe?) I've started to notice that slippage you mention. Among the most obvious cases for me was that "Corbyn as Lenin" front-page [1], which was absolutely disgraceful (if it matters I'm not an UK citizen and I don't particularly fancy Corbyn nor his policies), plus many of their Trump articles have been also pretty disgraceful, at least according to the Economist standards (the comic from one of the latest issues sends Trump directly to the garbage bin? like, what the hell is that?). For comparison, I find the FT quite unchanged, and that's good. [1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPHN3Z5WIAANXkw.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPHN3Z5WIAANXkw.png
DubiousPusher 6y ago
I don't think it needs that much explanation. The New York Times and other institutional press have often done this same thing. Which is, they report from "credible" sources without physical evidence of any kind. A source is considered credible by how much clout it carries with other major institutions or because of a history of trust. i.e. Even though intelligence and the military get things wrong all the time even to the point of outright lying, they are "credible". This has lead them astray many times in much more significant matters. Once reported, they treat contrary evidence as innuendo in all but the most severe cases of contrary evidence. I think they only bothered with a significant retraction effort here because the evidence of their error was so compelling and public.

balfirevic 6y ago

> A judgment call of "likely enough true" when the reality is "entirely fictional" points, in my opinion, to either a lack of judgment Completely justified and reasonable judgement that something is "likely to be true" can be sometimes be incorrect because that's what the word "likely" means.

ivraatiems 6y ago
I disagree. "Likely" is a probability statement, not an escape valve. If I say "it is likely the sky will be purple tomorrow", and then it is not, I still must answer: Why did I think it was likely? That's a judgment call.
- hitekker 6y ago
  > "Likely" is a probability statement, not an escape valve. This is a good warning that we ought to be more mindful of.

freewilly1040 6y ago

What was half hearted about the apology?

ivraatiems 6y ago
Callimachi's apology on Twitter[1] is itself okay, I think. It's the NYT article[2] that I read as weirdly congratulatory/"look how committed to journalism we are!" while discussing a fairly massive journalistic failure. [1] https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1339956839082037250 https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1339956839082037250 [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/business/media/new-york-times-caliphate-podcast.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/business/media/new-york-t...

ehsankia 6y ago

I would agree if it was a NYT column entirely about him, but this was a podcast talking about the ins and out of ISIS and exploring the process of investigation. I would argue that Chaudhry was just one part of the story, and his purpose was actually to show how hard it is to verify facts when it comes to ISIS.