10 ms·

> all the other mass media outlets All? C'mon. You can make the argument that MSNBC is a mirror of Fox News in terms of coddling its viewers, but if you're ca

> all the other mass media outlets All? C'mon. You can make the argument that MSNBC is a mirror of Fox News in terms of coddling its viewers, but if you're calling NPR or the New York Times "fact-free," you're only betraying your own ignorance of journalism standards. Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem. There are people who go to universities to study how to do this well, then go to work for institutions committed to doing this well. Their words should be treated differently than the words of some idiot with a Twitter account or a personality on an infotainment TV show.

bra-ket 6y ago
that 'high standard' apparently allows them to present rumors from anonymous sources as facts as long as it fits a certain political agenda. The burden of evidence no longer applies neither with NYT not any other heavily biased liberal outlets like WaPo or CNN.
- mrguyorama 6y ago
  You don't seem to understand what an "anonymous source" is
- zmmmmm 6y ago
  As far as I know, NYT will not report information from sources where they cannot establish some kind of authenticity. If you don't believe it, try reporting a completely anonymous tip to them and see how far you get. I will bet you they come back asking you provide some kind of further evidence to establish your identity or at least that your knowledge is authoritative.
  - matthewrobertso 6y ago
    If the NYT was fabricating their anonymous tips, like parent suggested, why would they publish outside anonymous tips? The fact that they don't publish every anonymous source doesn't mean that all of their anonymous sources have to be real.
    - zmmmmm 6y ago
      I didn't read their comment as claiming they fabricate the sources altogether. However, if you really reduce it to that level you have essentially established an unverifiable theory that is no different to a conspiracy theory. On that basis, the allegation that NYT routinely fabricates sources should not be believed either (since its from an anonymous source with no way to verify it).
      - matthewrobertso 6y ago
        I agree, neither the allegation that the nyt fabricates its anonymous sources nor the allegations made through those anonymous sources should be believed (nor should they be believed to be absolutely false). Alternatively, anonymous sources are not evidence and cannot be the basis of stories that must be trusted, and since the times relies often on anonymous sources we can consider them to possibly publish rumors without evidence.
        zmmmmm 6y ago
        You're equating fabrication with NYT incorporating anonymous sources into its reporting. Those are worlds apart. It is completely fine to use anonymous sources if you can authenticate their material. Some sort of myth seems to have been created that news reporting can't use anonymous sources. It's not only wrong, but not disclosing sources is an absolutely foundational accepted element of journalism.
        matthewrobertso 6y ago
        All I was arguing is that it is reasonable to be skeptical of articles posted in the new york times that are only confirmed by anonymous sources. As such a story is unverifiable/there is no chain of trust, believing the story involves trusting the newspaper.
        zmmmmm 6y ago
        It depends what level of skepticism you are applying there. In the sense of "do I have the full story", "is there another side to this I am not hearing", etc. I think its absolutely reasonable. But if you're skeptical about whether they completely made it up, published a rumour without any confirmation or are deliberately substantially altering it in how they portray it - that's an extremely serious allegation for a reputable news organisation. For example, I think that would stretch beyond "reasonable" in most cases for NYT based on my observation of their practices over time.
  - bra-ket 6y ago
    a good example would be Trump' alleged 'suckers and losers' comment regarding fallen soldiers. This was a rumor started by The Atlantic article citing 'anonymous sources' which spread and re-broadcasted by all news networks and NYT, some of these third-hand versions of the rumor claimed additional verification by, guess what, another group of 'high-ranked anonymous sources', completely ignoring rejection of these allegations by everyone who actually attended that particular event with the President. This is the definition of slander which is somehow acceptable if you (and your reader base) hate a particular person or ideology.
  - lenkite 6y ago
    Ok, many of these sources have later found to have little or no authenticity at all. Sources revealing second or third-hand information on the Trump administration. Mostly based on hearsay. Some imaginary. It has been journalism of the lowest possible standard. I trust NYT only on stuff completely unrelated to politics.
matthewrobertso 6y ago
Was the new york times factful in its reporting on iraq in 2003? And if they later investigated themselves and found that they published information that was not true, would that cancel the war pushed on us by the military industrial complex across all of our media and bring 500,000 dead Iraqis back to life?
- lern_too_spel 6y ago
  The New York Times regularly issues corrections and itself reported on which sources turned out to be untruthful.
  - nomel 6y ago
    I've been surprised by the frequency of corrections, and how difficult it is to find them. I think a browser extension that alerted you when an article you read was corrected would be interesting.
  - yawaemworht 6y ago
    In the other thread, somebody brought up the fact that the problem with fake news is that even if somebody fact check them, they have already spread and the fact check won't get the same attention and coverage. The thing is, i think the same unfortunately applies to journals as of lately. Too many times I've seen articles which claims that something "allegedly" or "supposedly" happened, or that "anonymous source informed on the matter" claims. Then the article gets either a silent edit, or get a retraction hidden somewhere in another news. After I've been burned by that a few times, sending something to a friend who read my message after several hours, opened the article i linked, and wondered what the hell I was talking about, I started sending them archived versions. What I'm trying to say is that even thought some journals issue corrections, sometimes that's not enought to cover the damage done.
- prof-dr-ir 6y ago
  Yes, this is a well-rehashed example where the NYT seems to have erred. But, poignant as it is, it is also increasingly further in the past - people born after some of those stories were written are adults now! I think that giving more recent examples would strengthen your argument.
adolph 6y ago
Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem. Do tell. What is a fact? Is it an assertion that is truthful? If something is not asserted is it still a fact? Is gravity a fact or an assertion without evidence? Was Ptolemy wrong or just complicated? Who are these people who go to universities and study how to investigate facts and report them clearly? Are they the in journalism or normal schools? Are they philosophers? Are they physics majors? How much of a fact is bound in the frame of reference or context in which it is asserted? Can two nominally opposed assertions both be true? Does that make them both facts? Can all facts be recorded someplace?
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  We can go down philosophical rabbit holes and end up in absurd places where we argue over the definition of "truth," but I was obviously making a statement within the context of our discussion about reporting the news and events of the day. If it's something you're interested in, nothing's stopping you from taking a journalism class or two, and after doing so you'd probably look at certain media outlets differently.
  - evgeniysharapov 6y ago
    Mr. Pilate once asked "What is truth?". Even though there are various definitions and approaches, I credit Pierce and pragmatists with the best one - truth is what we know at the end of inquiry/investigation. So, the "end of inquiry" being flexible, the truth can change as well, and I think, last decade and especially last year can attest to that. Something reported as a fact today - may not be a fact once we get more information in.
  - adolph 6y ago
    You stated "Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem." Is that a factual assertion? What's the evidence?
  - belorn 6y ago
    In terms of reporting the news about establishing facts, where it domestic terrorists that stormed the building or protestors? What word are being used? Where it people spontaneously instigated by the speech made by Trump, or radicals who had organized the attack much earlier and who traveled to the demonstration. What is the narrative and story being told and why does one journalist chose one kind and the other a completely different one despite both using the same facts for it? People sometimes say we live in a post-truth society. I would say that we live in a world where the narrative is more important than the truth, and part of the reason for that is that journalist are so well trained in creating narratives out of the crumbs of a few facts. I can even see the journalist students be given a handful of facts and asked to write a long article, each being graded on how well the narrative story end up.
mpfundstein 6y ago
phew. they really got your brain washed, haven't they?
lokar 6y ago
FWIW, there is bias in NPR/PBS/NYT/etc, but it is not in the content of the reports, but rather in what is reported. Any news org can only cover so much, there is an (editorial) call on what to cover and what not to cover. And in that (I've seen studies years go, so not handy) there is a detectable bias. IMO this is fine. I understand that story selection has editorial bias, even in news reporting. I compensate by reading several different sources that have different editorial slants, but still fact based reporting.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  Yes, absolutely. I subscribe to both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times precisely because they report different stories.
  - lokar 6y ago
    In general, business focused subscription publications (WSG, FT, Economist) tend to be more factually accurate. People subscribe because they want facts and good / impartial analysis. People who watch Fox want to be lied to.
rayiner 6y ago
> There are people who go to universities to study how to do this well, then go to work for institutions committed to doing this well. And a lot of these people have lost their minds. I’m trying to explain to my college educated friends right now why using “whiteness” as a pejorative is a bad thing. As an engineer I’ve always been skeptical of liberal arts education. But I didn’t think it would destroy America.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  ...is it really destroying America?
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Building a multi-ethnic Democracy is hard, and rhetoric like this threatens to blow up the whole thing. As a brown guy with mixed kids, I’m not eager to participate in this little experiment. So I’m not exaggerating when I said I think this will destroy the country. Imagine we’re not talking about America. Imagine we’re talking about Hindu treatment of Muslims in India. And India is on track to become majority Muslim. But people decide to remediate past imbalances by attaching negative characteristics to “Hinduness.” A small minority of Hindus, who control the media and universities, pipe this message to to Hindu households. “The challenges we face dealing with our Muslim immigrants are due to our Hinduness.” What happens? Like millions of people die in a civil war. Obviously. Americans can’t see how obviously wrong this approach is because they’re the fish inside the fishbowl. The use of “whiteness” as a pejorative is rooted in an odd psychological phenomenon of liberal whites: https://us-central1-spirit-fish-function.cloudfunctions.net/sections/news/articles/americas-white-saviors https://us-central1-spirit-fish-function.cloudfunctions.net/.... They are the only demographic group to express an out-group ethnic bias. Black, Hispanic, and Asian people, along with non-liberal whites all display a moderate (and about equal) in-group preference for people of the same ethnicity. So attaching negative connotations to “whiteness” doesn’t bother them. They view white people as the out-group. They understand that you can be white but not “white” and have a range of other identities: liberal, Democrat, New Yorker, etc. But for non-liberal whites, the same rhetoric serves to reinforce the moderate in-group bias. Put differently: if you draw a circle on the floor and call it “whiteness” and say it’s bad, liberal whites will happily step out of the circle. But for non-liberal whites (the majority) they will feel attacked on the basis of their skin color, exactly the same as if you did the same thing with “Blackness” or “Asianness.” To get people to disassociate from something bad, you need to attach it to an identity they can reject, while embracing some other, shared identity. When you say “this is not how we do things in America” people can all come together around that shared identity and reject the bad thing. If you attach it to some characteristic they think they can’t change, you force them to double down on it. A great example of this is George W. Bush versus versus Macron. When Muslim terrorists hit the twin towers, Bush gave a speech where he said brought Muslims into the fold: https://qz.com/1074258/911-video-and-text-of-george-w-bushs-islam-and-peace-speech https://qz.com/1074258/911-video-and-text-of-george-w-bushs-.... He said we all watched the planes crash into the towers and we Muslims condemned it all around the world. (Which of course wasn’t strictly true.) It worked. If you were a Muslim and you heard that speech, you had no reason to feel attacked. You were being invited into a group where you could condemn this bad thing while doubling down on your identity. As someone with a Muslim last name during that time, I’m eternally grateful for that. I wasn’t thankful then, because at the time, I just assumed this was how America did things. I didn’t realize appeal to universal values would one day be on the chopping block. Contrast what’s happening in France with Charlie Hebdo and subsequent events. Macron responded by making Islam the issue. He’s giving speeches about radicalization of Islam, etc. He’s not strictly wrong. Almost 1 in 5 French Muslims polled said the didn’t condemn the killings. But the other 80% now feel attacked and forced to maintain group solidarity. This is happening right now in America and it’s bad. When my aunt in law (who is a sweet woman but a Trump supporter) reads on Breitbart the New York Times tweets blaming the Capitol insurrection on “whiteness” how does she react? “Yes, I condemn the lawlessness and I will strive to be less white!” She doesn’t even think of herself as “white” but she knows she is white as a factual matter, and she doesn’t have a college degree and doesn’t understand how we can “get rid of whiteness” without getting rid of white people. She would absolutely condemn what happened. She votes Republican because she doesn’t believe in abortion. But now she feels attacked based on her skin color. And what other identity would she latch onto anyway? She’s not a New York lawyer who has a plethora of other identity groups to fall back on, and the media shits on those too. She lives in rural Oregon, she’s white and so is almost everyone around her (except her grandkids and us, which include a range of brown and Black), and she works a service job. White people who aren’t privileged don’t feel privileged. Liberals do not understand this and it’s a dangerous misconception about our reality. Normal white people don’t believe in this “punch up versus punch down stuff.” Those are ideas that exist in books, not in peoples’ heads. All you’re doing when you use “whiteness” is attacking people for something they can’t control and creating a white identity that didn’t exist before. And that’s a recipe for disaster.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Internal polls of NYT employees show less than 10% conservatives.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  Given the recent anti-intellectualism and demonization of traditional media outlets by the American right, this shouldn't be a surprise. I didn't claim NYT writers are unbiased, I said their reporting isn't "fact-free".
starik36 6y ago
There are degrees of "coddling", as you put it. Granted NYT isn't as egregious as CNN or MSNBC, but they definitely have a strong bias, as exemplified by their "revolt": https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21280425/new-york-times-tom-cotton-send-troops-staff-revolt https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21280425/new-york-times-tom-cot... This is just one example.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
NYT and NPR are both extremely biased now. I say that as a 20 year long NPR listener. This is no secret, especially at NYT, where the newsroom is no longer firewalled from opinion. They chase even moderate left folks out for not being woke enough. The 1619 project fiasco, Bari Weiss, etc. They have fallen far since Trump got elected.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
  They're undoubtedly intersectional when it comes to social issues, but they're globalist on international affairs, and relatively centrist when it comes to the economy.

bra-ket 6y ago

that 'high standard' apparently allows them to present rumors from anonymous sources as facts as long as it fits a certain political agenda. The burden of evidence no longer applies neither with NYT not any other heavily biased liberal outlets like WaPo or CNN.

mrguyorama 6y ago
You don't seem to understand what an "anonymous source" is
zmmmmm 6y ago
As far as I know, NYT will not report information from sources where they cannot establish some kind of authenticity. If you don't believe it, try reporting a completely anonymous tip to them and see how far you get. I will bet you they come back asking you provide some kind of further evidence to establish your identity or at least that your knowledge is authoritative.
- matthewrobertso 6y ago
  If the NYT was fabricating their anonymous tips, like parent suggested, why would they publish outside anonymous tips? The fact that they don't publish every anonymous source doesn't mean that all of their anonymous sources have to be real.
  - zmmmmm 6y ago
    I didn't read their comment as claiming they fabricate the sources altogether. However, if you really reduce it to that level you have essentially established an unverifiable theory that is no different to a conspiracy theory. On that basis, the allegation that NYT routinely fabricates sources should not be believed either (since its from an anonymous source with no way to verify it).
    - matthewrobertso 6y ago
      I agree, neither the allegation that the nyt fabricates its anonymous sources nor the allegations made through those anonymous sources should be believed (nor should they be believed to be absolutely false). Alternatively, anonymous sources are not evidence and cannot be the basis of stories that must be trusted, and since the times relies often on anonymous sources we can consider them to possibly publish rumors without evidence.
      - zmmmmm 6y ago
        You're equating fabrication with NYT incorporating anonymous sources into its reporting. Those are worlds apart. It is completely fine to use anonymous sources if you can authenticate their material. Some sort of myth seems to have been created that news reporting can't use anonymous sources. It's not only wrong, but not disclosing sources is an absolutely foundational accepted element of journalism.
        matthewrobertso 6y ago
        All I was arguing is that it is reasonable to be skeptical of articles posted in the new york times that are only confirmed by anonymous sources. As such a story is unverifiable/there is no chain of trust, believing the story involves trusting the newspaper.
        zmmmmm 6y ago
        It depends what level of skepticism you are applying there. In the sense of "do I have the full story", "is there another side to this I am not hearing", etc. I think its absolutely reasonable. But if you're skeptical about whether they completely made it up, published a rumour without any confirmation or are deliberately substantially altering it in how they portray it - that's an extremely serious allegation for a reputable news organisation. For example, I think that would stretch beyond "reasonable" in most cases for NYT based on my observation of their practices over time.
- bra-ket 6y ago
  a good example would be Trump' alleged 'suckers and losers' comment regarding fallen soldiers. This was a rumor started by The Atlantic article citing 'anonymous sources' which spread and re-broadcasted by all news networks and NYT, some of these third-hand versions of the rumor claimed additional verification by, guess what, another group of 'high-ranked anonymous sources', completely ignoring rejection of these allegations by everyone who actually attended that particular event with the President. This is the definition of slander which is somehow acceptable if you (and your reader base) hate a particular person or ideology.
- lenkite 6y ago
  Ok, many of these sources have later found to have little or no authenticity at all. Sources revealing second or third-hand information on the Trump administration. Mostly based on hearsay. Some imaginary. It has been journalism of the lowest possible standard. I trust NYT only on stuff completely unrelated to politics.

matthewrobertso 6y ago

Was the new york times factful in its reporting on iraq in 2003? And if they later investigated themselves and found that they published information that was not true, would that cancel the war pushed on us by the military industrial complex across all of our media and bring 500,000 dead Iraqis back to life?

lern_too_spel 6y ago
The New York Times regularly issues corrections and itself reported on which sources turned out to be untruthful.
- nomel 6y ago
  I've been surprised by the frequency of corrections, and how difficult it is to find them. I think a browser extension that alerted you when an article you read was corrected would be interesting.
- yawaemworht 6y ago
  In the other thread, somebody brought up the fact that the problem with fake news is that even if somebody fact check them, they have already spread and the fact check won't get the same attention and coverage. The thing is, i think the same unfortunately applies to journals as of lately. Too many times I've seen articles which claims that something "allegedly" or "supposedly" happened, or that "anonymous source informed on the matter" claims. Then the article gets either a silent edit, or get a retraction hidden somewhere in another news. After I've been burned by that a few times, sending something to a friend who read my message after several hours, opened the article i linked, and wondered what the hell I was talking about, I started sending them archived versions. What I'm trying to say is that even thought some journals issue corrections, sometimes that's not enought to cover the damage done.
prof-dr-ir 6y ago
Yes, this is a well-rehashed example where the NYT seems to have erred. But, poignant as it is, it is also increasingly further in the past - people born after some of those stories were written are adults now! I think that giving more recent examples would strengthen your argument.

adolph 6y ago

Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem. Do tell. What is a fact? Is it an assertion that is truthful? If something is not asserted is it still a fact? Is gravity a fact or an assertion without evidence? Was Ptolemy wrong or just complicated? Who are these people who go to universities and study how to investigate facts and report them clearly? Are they the in journalism or normal schools? Are they philosophers? Are they physics majors? How much of a fact is bound in the frame of reference or context in which it is asserted? Can two nominally opposed assertions both be true? Does that make them both facts? Can all facts be recorded someplace?

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
We can go down philosophical rabbit holes and end up in absurd places where we argue over the definition of "truth," but I was obviously making a statement within the context of our discussion about reporting the news and events of the day. If it's something you're interested in, nothing's stopping you from taking a journalism class or two, and after doing so you'd probably look at certain media outlets differently.
- evgeniysharapov 6y ago
  Mr. Pilate once asked "What is truth?". Even though there are various definitions and approaches, I credit Pierce and pragmatists with the best one - truth is what we know at the end of inquiry/investigation. So, the "end of inquiry" being flexible, the truth can change as well, and I think, last decade and especially last year can attest to that. Something reported as a fact today - may not be a fact once we get more information in.
- adolph 6y ago
  You stated "Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem." Is that a factual assertion? What's the evidence?
- belorn 6y ago
  In terms of reporting the news about establishing facts, where it domestic terrorists that stormed the building or protestors? What word are being used? Where it people spontaneously instigated by the speech made by Trump, or radicals who had organized the attack much earlier and who traveled to the demonstration. What is the narrative and story being told and why does one journalist chose one kind and the other a completely different one despite both using the same facts for it? People sometimes say we live in a post-truth society. I would say that we live in a world where the narrative is more important than the truth, and part of the reason for that is that journalist are so well trained in creating narratives out of the crumbs of a few facts. I can even see the journalist students be given a handful of facts and asked to write a long article, each being graded on how well the narrative story end up.

mpfundstein 6y ago

phew. they really got your brain washed, haven't they?

lokar 6y ago

FWIW, there is bias in NPR/PBS/NYT/etc, but it is not in the content of the reports, but rather in what is reported. Any news org can only cover so much, there is an (editorial) call on what to cover and what not to cover. And in that (I've seen studies years go, so not handy) there is a detectable bias. IMO this is fine. I understand that story selection has editorial bias, even in news reporting. I compensate by reading several different sources that have different editorial slants, but still fact based reporting.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
Yes, absolutely. I subscribe to both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times precisely because they report different stories.
- lokar 6y ago
  In general, business focused subscription publications (WSG, FT, Economist) tend to be more factually accurate. People subscribe because they want facts and good / impartial analysis. People who watch Fox want to be lied to.

rayiner 6y ago

> There are people who go to universities to study how to do this well, then go to work for institutions committed to doing this well. And a lot of these people have lost their minds. I’m trying to explain to my college educated friends right now why using “whiteness” as a pejorative is a bad thing. As an engineer I’ve always been skeptical of liberal arts education. But I didn’t think it would destroy America.

EdwardDiego 6y ago
...is it really destroying America?
- rayiner 6y ago
  Building a multi-ethnic Democracy is hard, and rhetoric like this threatens to blow up the whole thing. As a brown guy with mixed kids, I’m not eager to participate in this little experiment. So I’m not exaggerating when I said I think this will destroy the country. Imagine we’re not talking about America. Imagine we’re talking about Hindu treatment of Muslims in India. And India is on track to become majority Muslim. But people decide to remediate past imbalances by attaching negative characteristics to “Hinduness.” A small minority of Hindus, who control the media and universities, pipe this message to to Hindu households. “The challenges we face dealing with our Muslim immigrants are due to our Hinduness.” What happens? Like millions of people die in a civil war. Obviously. Americans can’t see how obviously wrong this approach is because they’re the fish inside the fishbowl. The use of “whiteness” as a pejorative is rooted in an odd psychological phenomenon of liberal whites: https://us-central1-spirit-fish-function.cloudfunctions.net/sections/news/articles/americas-white-saviors https://us-central1-spirit-fish-function.cloudfunctions.net/.... They are the only demographic group to express an out-group ethnic bias. Black, Hispanic, and Asian people, along with non-liberal whites all display a moderate (and about equal) in-group preference for people of the same ethnicity. So attaching negative connotations to “whiteness” doesn’t bother them. They view white people as the out-group. They understand that you can be white but not “white” and have a range of other identities: liberal, Democrat, New Yorker, etc. But for non-liberal whites, the same rhetoric serves to reinforce the moderate in-group bias. Put differently: if you draw a circle on the floor and call it “whiteness” and say it’s bad, liberal whites will happily step out of the circle. But for non-liberal whites (the majority) they will feel attacked on the basis of their skin color, exactly the same as if you did the same thing with “Blackness” or “Asianness.” To get people to disassociate from something bad, you need to attach it to an identity they can reject, while embracing some other, shared identity. When you say “this is not how we do things in America” people can all come together around that shared identity and reject the bad thing. If you attach it to some characteristic they think they can’t change, you force them to double down on it. A great example of this is George W. Bush versus versus Macron. When Muslim terrorists hit the twin towers, Bush gave a speech where he said brought Muslims into the fold: https://qz.com/1074258/911-video-and-text-of-george-w-bushs-islam-and-peace-speech https://qz.com/1074258/911-video-and-text-of-george-w-bushs-.... He said we all watched the planes crash into the towers and we Muslims condemned it all around the world. (Which of course wasn’t strictly true.) It worked. If you were a Muslim and you heard that speech, you had no reason to feel attacked. You were being invited into a group where you could condemn this bad thing while doubling down on your identity. As someone with a Muslim last name during that time, I’m eternally grateful for that. I wasn’t thankful then, because at the time, I just assumed this was how America did things. I didn’t realize appeal to universal values would one day be on the chopping block. Contrast what’s happening in France with Charlie Hebdo and subsequent events. Macron responded by making Islam the issue. He’s giving speeches about radicalization of Islam, etc. He’s not strictly wrong. Almost 1 in 5 French Muslims polled said the didn’t condemn the killings. But the other 80% now feel attacked and forced to maintain group solidarity. This is happening right now in America and it’s bad. When my aunt in law (who is a sweet woman but a Trump supporter) reads on Breitbart the New York Times tweets blaming the Capitol insurrection on “whiteness” how does she react? “Yes, I condemn the lawlessness and I will strive to be less white!” She doesn’t even think of herself as “white” but she knows she is white as a factual matter, and she doesn’t have a college degree and doesn’t understand how we can “get rid of whiteness” without getting rid of white people. She would absolutely condemn what happened. She votes Republican because she doesn’t believe in abortion. But now she feels attacked based on her skin color. And what other identity would she latch onto anyway? She’s not a New York lawyer who has a plethora of other identity groups to fall back on, and the media shits on those too. She lives in rural Oregon, she’s white and so is almost everyone around her (except her grandkids and us, which include a range of brown and Black), and she works a service job. White people who aren’t privileged don’t feel privileged. Liberals do not understand this and it’s a dangerous misconception about our reality. Normal white people don’t believe in this “punch up versus punch down stuff.” Those are ideas that exist in books, not in peoples’ heads. All you’re doing when you use “whiteness” is attacking people for something they can’t control and creating a white identity that didn’t exist before. And that’s a recipe for disaster.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Internal polls of NYT employees show less than 10% conservatives.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
Given the recent anti-intellectualism and demonization of traditional media outlets by the American right, this shouldn't be a surprise. I didn't claim NYT writers are unbiased, I said their reporting isn't "fact-free".

starik36 6y ago

There are degrees of "coddling", as you put it. Granted NYT isn't as egregious as CNN or MSNBC, but they definitely have a strong bias, as exemplified by their "revolt": https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21280425/new-york-times-tom-cotton-send-troops-staff-revolt https://www.vox.com/2020/6/5/21280425/new-york-times-tom-cot... This is just one example.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

NYT and NPR are both extremely biased now. I say that as a 20 year long NPR listener. This is no secret, especially at NYT, where the newsroom is no longer firewalled from opinion. They chase even moderate left folks out for not being woke enough. The 1619 project fiasco, Bari Weiss, etc. They have fallen far since Trump got elected.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 6y ago
They're undoubtedly intersectional when it comes to social issues, but they're globalist on international affairs, and relatively centrist when it comes to the economy.