7 ms·

WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

79 points by tomtung 6y ago

ryan-duve 6y ago
The NYT story is indirectly linked via tweets. It is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-health-organization-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-he...
- uberman 6y ago
  or https://archive.vn/vZzdd https://archive.vn/vZzdd if you would rather not give them the visit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
S_A_P 6y ago
Seeing a lot of evidence of late that NYT Journalists arent playing fairly. The Greenwald article which despite its problems points out bad faith on the part of Taylor Lorenz(I think that is her name) and now we have WHO scientists claiming that Javier C. Hernández and James Gorman have bent the truth. I wouldnt be as bothered by this if it were possible to call out bad journalism without being dismissed as a "fake news-er". What news organizations can we really trust now?
- ahepp 6y ago
  Do you have a link to the Greenwald article in question? It sounds interesting.
  - offby37years 6y ago
    https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale...
  - belorn 6y ago
    I would guess it is this one: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale... It basically describe the now pretty common practice of trawling social media sites and forums for something which can be made into news, conducted by very large news papers like NYT. In my view its a kind of low effort data mining when there is news droughts. Nothing to report? Then go and look up the all the employed truck drivers in the nation and see if you can find one that does not have a driver license (it most likely exist one or two). It does not ask if the portion of truck drivers that have lost their license is higher than the overall population, or provide any insight into the profession, but rather just want to attract reader attention by highlighting something which look controversial.
    - S_A_P 6y ago
      This is the one. Thanks.
    - refurb 6y ago
      I get your point but this one article of many written by Glenn on the topic of crappy journalism and a lack of accountability, even among the reporters at the NYTimes. This article is about a social media post, by a journalist at the NYTimes, accusing a highly visible person of using a slur that never actually happened. And once corrected, this reporter basically hides and asks why everyone is attacking her. He’s using this event as an example of an on-going issue.
      - ahepp 6y ago
        Maybe I'm way off here, but it looks like you may think the person you're replying to is saying that Greenwald's article is "a kind of low effort data mining when there is news droughts" (etc) I believe they are agreeing with Greenwald, and saying that the Times reporter is the one in the wrong. Or this is just a vexing parse for me
        refurb 6y ago
        No, you are correct! I completely misread that.
- lobotryas 6y ago
  None by themselves. Every news source has an agenda; no exceptions. That’s like asking: what’s one food I can eat forever and stay healthy? Our only recourse is to consume a varied diet of news sources. One tool we do have now is the ability to subscribe to youtubers and similar people who try to make a living from telling you about the news. The benefit here is that you have them search through news for you and then give you a summary or analysis. Obviously I won’t mention names because someone will immediate chime in to start an argument. You’ll have to do your own digging.
  - nojokes 6y ago
    In addition you also should be informed about the food you are eating - how many carbs, fat, protein etc. The same with news sources.
- loosetypes 6y ago
  Just to add to the list, Noam Chomsky has long maintained that the NYT has a very strong agenda regarding Israel which manifests in any and all related coverage.[1] Such an idea ran contrary to my long held sentiment for the NYT as rational and unbiased but I am seeing it more and more. [1] Chomsky writes about this in Understanding Power.
  - sgregnt 6y ago
    Noam Chomsky has an agenda himself, I would not use him as a factual reference for any such perceived bias.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Fricken 6y ago
      Chomsky is transparent about his agenda, and that's the best you can hope for from anybody.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    And what does NYTs coverage of Israel has to do with the issue on hand?
- loopz 6y ago
  Go to the facts. Journalists check facts all the time. Most reporting is always inaccurate to insiders, so don't blindly trust what is said by anyone.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zozbot234 6y ago
> NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative Join the club! Maybe there was something to Mr. Trump's quips about the "Fake News Media".
- tbihl 6y ago
  Straight to the bottom for your Trump supporting
- covidthrow 6y ago
  There was (and is), but you're not going to find many that agree on here. (Even in the comment section of a supporting data point.) People who dislike Trump (the majority of HN readers) are strongly biased to react negatively at the very mention of his name. Ironically, a not-insignificant contributing reason for this is... corrupt and biased news media. I'll patiently await my tribal downvotes, now...
  - 1_player 6y ago
    There is fake news, and Fake News, the propaganda term used by Mr Trump as a weapon against anybody who used to disagree with him. I agree that honest journalism these days is a lost art, but I do not care to be associated with far right American propaganda, thanks.
    - covidthrow 6y ago
      Perhaps—and I respect your acknowledgment of the problem—but that is a false dichotomy. A tremendous amount of opposition news was false and also propaganda, so perhaps you're just picking sides. But I'm of the opinion that there is one area in which both sides could unite for the benefit of the entire country: against propaganda in any form.
    - robin21 6y ago
      So basically you don’t want to appear in support of anything Trump said...if you read back what you wrote you will realize the mental gymnastics you are doing because you are not free to speak your mind because of today’s political discourse climate and cancel culture.
themgt 6y ago
It's worth noting the original tweet is from Peter Daszak, who has been president of EcoHealth Alliance which has for 15 years worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology studying bat coronaviruses[1][2][3]. He's been on record many times at least since February 2020 saying the ideas of lab break were "crackpot theories that need to be addressed" else they might harm our cooperation with China.[4] At the very least that seems like a conflict of interest and perhaps the WHO should be sending investigators to China without longstanding professional ties to the lab whose name they aim to clear, who weren't already on record with their conclusions a year before they were sent to investigate their colleagues. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-coronavirus-vaccine-researcher-covid-19-cure-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-coronaviru... [2] https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Zeng-etal_Bat-SARSlike_2016.pdf https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11... [3] https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698 https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j.... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/20/coronavirus-chinese-scientists-false-rumours-experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/20/coronavirus-ch...
- headShrinker 6y ago
  Not surprised you are getting immediately down voted. My post is as well. There seems to be bias HN users as well, no amount of facts or historical reference is enough to correct it.
  - robin21 6y ago
    Probably because it would mean having to side with Trump on something.
- mapgrep 6y ago
  Adding on the above comment, Daszak’s role in promoting the contentious theory of Covid spontaneously developing in wildlife is widely and credibly documented. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... Even if you agree with him, it’s fair to point out he had a strong point of view before he ever went on this mission to Wuhan. It’s also worth pointing out that in at least one way the linked tweet lends credibility to the nyt report: it acknowledges “heated arguments” on the WHO mission. Finally, if you read the NYT report you’ll see it is building off recent reporting on the WHO trip by WSJ and the Australian Broadcasting Company. The issue of possible (accidental - not engineered by govt) lab origins for this sort of virus, in the past or future, is also a real and widely covered credible issue. There are a lot of comments here alleging an nyt agenda. Maybe you can argue the mainstream press has one, but this coverage is not particularly unusual, either on the WHO trip or Wuhan. (Also, it can be argued the MSM under covered the possible lab origins of Covid for months, scared of being lumped in with people who were saying the Chinese govt made it on purpose.)
robin21 6y ago
At this point the NYT is a tabloid.
- jacob2484 6y ago
  Agreed. Used to respect the NY times, but now it's just borderline far left propaganda
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - tasty_freeze 6y ago
    You have never seen far left if you think the NYT is far left.
    - offby37years 6y ago
      No true Bolshevik.
      - shanhaiguan 6y ago
        Words have meanings.
        the_only_law 6y ago
        Not any more apparently. Fascist, socialist, communist, alt-right, neoliberal, etc. just mean whatever they need to quickly slur someone with them. Hell ever Marxism seems like it doesn’t actually refer to anything Marx or his contemporaries ever said anymore. Did you know Bloomberg is a Maoist? Fascinating how the site obsessed with their pseudo-intellectual superiority can’t add anything other than downvotes.
        whythre 6y ago
        I agree. Unless we are talking about avowed actual Nazis or card-carrying Communists, much of this extremist labeling can be reduced to identify ‘enemy tribe members.’
nickthemagicman 6y ago
Things are tending towards extreme sensationalism nowadays. The news media has to compete with the internet for eyeballs. Honey boo boo on the learning channel was the beginning of the end.
headShrinker 6y ago
“Chinese officials urged the W.H.O. team to embrace the government’s narrative about the source of the virus, including the unproven notion that it might have spread to China from abroad, according to several members of the team. The W.H.O. scientists responded that they would refrain from making judgments without data.” ‘“It was my take on the entire mission that it was highly geopolitical,” Dr. Fischer said. ‘ “lack of detailed patient records both from early confirmed cases, and possible ones before that.” ‘“We asked for that on a number of occasions and they gave us some of that, but not necessarily enough to do the sorts of analyses you would do,” said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist on the W.H.O. team, referring to the confirmed cases.’ ‘In the end, the W.H.O. experts sought compromise, praising the Chinese government’s transparency, but pushing for more research about the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019.’ Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-health-organization-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-he... After following this for over a year, witnessing China manipulating or withholding information, reading the article in question, and reading all of the associated tweets, it is clear every team involved has inherent biases. The WHO investigation team is just as much political as it is scientific. The team needs to seem cooperative in order to get more information, which they desperately need. The team said they would not come to any outcomes without all of the data first yet they did exactly that by saying, the virus likely came from food that was imported and it is not likely that it came from the lab. China is clearly still trying to cover up. The US is still trying to investigate any possible origin story, but don’t seem particularly keen on a lab origin story. It’s mostly far right Republicans like Tom Cotton who originally proposed and perpetuated the lab origin theory in the first place, not exactly New York Times’ bread and butter butter customers. NYT does not have a prescribed narrative of a lab origin story. WHO scientist have a very strong interest in continuing to gather information from China through cooperative means. So I’m not surprised they would throw shade on a New York Times article saying that they were greeted with lots of hesitation from China. The only part of this I don’t understand is why there is a the Hacker News post with links to scientist’s tweet that all but confirms the bias and intent already illustrated by said NYT story. TLDR: WHO scientist are not happy to see themselves being quoted as having difficulty working with the Chinese, as they need to continue working with the Chinese. They would probably like the New York Times story redacted, so they are claiming to have been misquoted... nothing to see here folks, moving along
Tycho 6y ago
I’m curious why the NYT hasn’t been the victim of a large scale hack/infiltration/leak/exposé. With all the shenanigans their staff seem to pull and the enemies they make, you’d think their communications and files and finances would be a big target. Is their op-sec really that good? Do they get help from the intel community?
treis 6y ago
This seems like a pretty non-denial denial. I don't see any real substantive disagreement about facts. Just whether or not heated arguments over access to documents should be viewed in a good or bad light.
simonblack 6y ago
The New York Times of 2021 is NOT the New York Times of 1960. Trust is lost very quickly, but it takes a long time to earn that trust back, once lost. I class the NYT of today in the same league as CNN, Washington Post, and Reuters; other formerly great news media companies that have lost all my trust. I doubt greatly whether I would ever live long enough to believe in any of these four companies again. Other formerly-great media companies that are borderline as far as I can tell: BBC and the (Australian) ABC. Other media companies that have never held my trust: All of the Rupert Murdoch stable. (Including Fox, Sky News, WSJ, News of the World, etc)
- brutal_chaos_ 6y ago
  I wish I didn't agree, but I really do. I find myself looking abroad for news about the US. One must go through multiple countries as each have their own bent towards the US. Lot's of extra work, but definitely worthwhile for newsjunkies like my SO and me. EDIT: words fixed Which US news sources today stay on the neutral/journalistic path in the US? Everything will have a slant of some kind of course, though hopefully there are outlets that are far less egregious. Edit adt'l: a question appears!
- austhrow743 6y ago
  How did Reuters lose it?
  - simonblack 6y ago
    When you have a broad range of news sources and you can compare them over a longish period, you start to see patterns and biases. Reuters was one of the most surprising, for me, losses of trust. I always had Reuters 'way up there' in truthfulness, but I was forced to change my mind. These days, they stick to Establishment points of view, not necessarily the truth.
- 4eor0 6y ago
  They’ve always had an agenda; sway opinion and leverage that power. I wonder if they’re less trustworthy or you’re more aware of their untrustworthiness?

79 points by tomtung 6y ago

The NYT story is indirectly linked via tweets. It is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-health-organization-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-he...

uberman 6y ago
or https://archive.vn/vZzdd https://archive.vn/vZzdd if you would rather not give them the visit.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

S_A_P 6y ago

Seeing a lot of evidence of late that NYT Journalists arent playing fairly. The Greenwald article which despite its problems points out bad faith on the part of Taylor Lorenz(I think that is her name) and now we have WHO scientists claiming that Javier C. Hernández and James Gorman have bent the truth. I wouldnt be as bothered by this if it were possible to call out bad journalism without being dismissed as a "fake news-er". What news organizations can we really trust now?

ahepp 6y ago
Do you have a link to the Greenwald article in question? It sounds interesting.
- offby37years 6y ago
  https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale...
- belorn 6y ago
  I would guess it is this one: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale... It basically describe the now pretty common practice of trawling social media sites and forums for something which can be made into news, conducted by very large news papers like NYT. In my view its a kind of low effort data mining when there is news droughts. Nothing to report? Then go and look up the all the employed truck drivers in the nation and see if you can find one that does not have a driver license (it most likely exist one or two). It does not ask if the portion of truck drivers that have lost their license is higher than the overall population, or provide any insight into the profession, but rather just want to attract reader attention by highlighting something which look controversial.
  - S_A_P 6y ago
    This is the one. Thanks.
  - refurb 6y ago
    I get your point but this one article of many written by Glenn on the topic of crappy journalism and a lack of accountability, even among the reporters at the NYTimes. This article is about a social media post, by a journalist at the NYTimes, accusing a highly visible person of using a slur that never actually happened. And once corrected, this reporter basically hides and asks why everyone is attacking her. He’s using this event as an example of an on-going issue.
    - ahepp 6y ago
      Maybe I'm way off here, but it looks like you may think the person you're replying to is saying that Greenwald's article is "a kind of low effort data mining when there is news droughts" (etc) I believe they are agreeing with Greenwald, and saying that the Times reporter is the one in the wrong. Or this is just a vexing parse for me
      - refurb 6y ago
        No, you are correct! I completely misread that.
lobotryas 6y ago
None by themselves. Every news source has an agenda; no exceptions. That’s like asking: what’s one food I can eat forever and stay healthy? Our only recourse is to consume a varied diet of news sources. One tool we do have now is the ability to subscribe to youtubers and similar people who try to make a living from telling you about the news. The benefit here is that you have them search through news for you and then give you a summary or analysis. Obviously I won’t mention names because someone will immediate chime in to start an argument. You’ll have to do your own digging.
- nojokes 6y ago
  In addition you also should be informed about the food you are eating - how many carbs, fat, protein etc. The same with news sources.
loosetypes 6y ago
Just to add to the list, Noam Chomsky has long maintained that the NYT has a very strong agenda regarding Israel which manifests in any and all related coverage.[1] Such an idea ran contrary to my long held sentiment for the NYT as rational and unbiased but I am seeing it more and more. [1] Chomsky writes about this in Understanding Power.
- sgregnt 6y ago
  Noam Chomsky has an agenda himself, I would not use him as a factual reference for any such perceived bias.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Fricken 6y ago
    Chomsky is transparent about his agenda, and that's the best you can hope for from anybody.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  And what does NYTs coverage of Israel has to do with the issue on hand?
loopz 6y ago
Go to the facts. Journalists check facts all the time. Most reporting is always inaccurate to insiders, so don't blindly trust what is said by anyone.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

zozbot234 6y ago

> NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative Join the club! Maybe there was something to Mr. Trump's quips about the "Fake News Media".

tbihl 6y ago
Straight to the bottom for your Trump supporting
covidthrow 6y ago
There was (and is), but you're not going to find many that agree on here. (Even in the comment section of a supporting data point.) People who dislike Trump (the majority of HN readers) are strongly biased to react negatively at the very mention of his name. Ironically, a not-insignificant contributing reason for this is... corrupt and biased news media. I'll patiently await my tribal downvotes, now...
- 1_player 6y ago
  There is fake news, and Fake News, the propaganda term used by Mr Trump as a weapon against anybody who used to disagree with him. I agree that honest journalism these days is a lost art, but I do not care to be associated with far right American propaganda, thanks.
  - covidthrow 6y ago
    Perhaps—and I respect your acknowledgment of the problem—but that is a false dichotomy. A tremendous amount of opposition news was false and also propaganda, so perhaps you're just picking sides. But I'm of the opinion that there is one area in which both sides could unite for the benefit of the entire country: against propaganda in any form.
  - robin21 6y ago
    So basically you don’t want to appear in support of anything Trump said...if you read back what you wrote you will realize the mental gymnastics you are doing because you are not free to speak your mind because of today’s political discourse climate and cancel culture.

themgt 6y ago

It's worth noting the original tweet is from Peter Daszak, who has been president of EcoHealth Alliance which has for 15 years worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology studying bat coronaviruses[1][2][3]. He's been on record many times at least since February 2020 saying the ideas of lab break were "crackpot theories that need to be addressed" else they might harm our cooperation with China.[4] At the very least that seems like a conflict of interest and perhaps the WHO should be sending investigators to China without longstanding professional ties to the lab whose name they aim to clear, who weren't already on record with their conclusions a year before they were sent to investigate their colleagues. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-coronavirus-vaccine-researcher-covid-19-cure-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-coronaviru... [2] https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Zeng-etal_Bat-SARSlike_2016.pdf https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11... [3] https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1006698 https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j.... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/20/coronavirus-chinese-scientists-false-rumours-experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/20/coronavirus-ch...

headShrinker 6y ago
Not surprised you are getting immediately down voted. My post is as well. There seems to be bias HN users as well, no amount of facts or historical reference is enough to correct it.
- robin21 6y ago
  Probably because it would mean having to side with Trump on something.
mapgrep 6y ago
Adding on the above comment, Daszak’s role in promoting the contentious theory of Covid spontaneously developing in wildlife is widely and credibly documented. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... Even if you agree with him, it’s fair to point out he had a strong point of view before he ever went on this mission to Wuhan. It’s also worth pointing out that in at least one way the linked tweet lends credibility to the nyt report: it acknowledges “heated arguments” on the WHO mission. Finally, if you read the NYT report you’ll see it is building off recent reporting on the WHO trip by WSJ and the Australian Broadcasting Company. The issue of possible (accidental - not engineered by govt) lab origins for this sort of virus, in the past or future, is also a real and widely covered credible issue. There are a lot of comments here alleging an nyt agenda. Maybe you can argue the mainstream press has one, but this coverage is not particularly unusual, either on the WHO trip or Wuhan. (Also, it can be argued the MSM under covered the possible lab origins of Covid for months, scared of being lumped in with people who were saying the Chinese govt made it on purpose.)

robin21 6y ago

At this point the NYT is a tabloid.

jacob2484 6y ago
Agreed. Used to respect the NY times, but now it's just borderline far left propaganda
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tasty_freeze 6y ago
  You have never seen far left if you think the NYT is far left.
  - offby37years 6y ago
    No true Bolshevik.
    - shanhaiguan 6y ago
      Words have meanings.
      - the_only_law 6y ago
        Not any more apparently. Fascist, socialist, communist, alt-right, neoliberal, etc. just mean whatever they need to quickly slur someone with them. Hell ever Marxism seems like it doesn’t actually refer to anything Marx or his contemporaries ever said anymore. Did you know Bloomberg is a Maoist? Fascinating how the site obsessed with their pseudo-intellectual superiority can’t add anything other than downvotes.
        whythre 6y ago
        I agree. Unless we are talking about avowed actual Nazis or card-carrying Communists, much of this extremist labeling can be reduced to identify ‘enemy tribe members.’

nickthemagicman 6y ago

Things are tending towards extreme sensationalism nowadays. The news media has to compete with the internet for eyeballs. Honey boo boo on the learning channel was the beginning of the end.

headShrinker 6y ago

“Chinese officials urged the W.H.O. team to embrace the government’s narrative about the source of the virus, including the unproven notion that it might have spread to China from abroad, according to several members of the team. The W.H.O. scientists responded that they would refrain from making judgments without data.” ‘“It was my take on the entire mission that it was highly geopolitical,” Dr. Fischer said. ‘ “lack of detailed patient records both from early confirmed cases, and possible ones before that.” ‘“We asked for that on a number of occasions and they gave us some of that, but not necessarily enough to do the sorts of analyses you would do,” said Dominic Dwyer, an Australian microbiologist on the W.H.O. team, referring to the confirmed cases.’ ‘In the end, the W.H.O. experts sought compromise, praising the Chinese government’s transparency, but pushing for more research about the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019.’ Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-health-organization-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/world/asia/china-world-he... After following this for over a year, witnessing China manipulating or withholding information, reading the article in question, and reading all of the associated tweets, it is clear every team involved has inherent biases. The WHO investigation team is just as much political as it is scientific. The team needs to seem cooperative in order to get more information, which they desperately need. The team said they would not come to any outcomes without all of the data first yet they did exactly that by saying, the virus likely came from food that was imported and it is not likely that it came from the lab. China is clearly still trying to cover up. The US is still trying to investigate any possible origin story, but don’t seem particularly keen on a lab origin story. It’s mostly far right Republicans like Tom Cotton who originally proposed and perpetuated the lab origin theory in the first place, not exactly New York Times’ bread and butter butter customers. NYT does not have a prescribed narrative of a lab origin story. WHO scientist have a very strong interest in continuing to gather information from China through cooperative means. So I’m not surprised they would throw shade on a New York Times article saying that they were greeted with lots of hesitation from China. The only part of this I don’t understand is why there is a the Hacker News post with links to scientist’s tweet that all but confirms the bias and intent already illustrated by said NYT story. TLDR: WHO scientist are not happy to see themselves being quoted as having difficulty working with the Chinese, as they need to continue working with the Chinese. They would probably like the New York Times story redacted, so they are claiming to have been misquoted... nothing to see here folks, moving along

Tycho 6y ago

I’m curious why the NYT hasn’t been the victim of a large scale hack/infiltration/leak/exposé. With all the shenanigans their staff seem to pull and the enemies they make, you’d think their communications and files and finances would be a big target. Is their op-sec really that good? Do they get help from the intel community?

treis 6y ago

This seems like a pretty non-denial denial. I don't see any real substantive disagreement about facts. Just whether or not heated arguments over access to documents should be viewed in a good or bad light.

simonblack 6y ago

The New York Times of 2021 is NOT the New York Times of 1960. Trust is lost very quickly, but it takes a long time to earn that trust back, once lost. I class the NYT of today in the same league as CNN, Washington Post, and Reuters; other formerly great news media companies that have lost all my trust. I doubt greatly whether I would ever live long enough to believe in any of these four companies again. Other formerly-great media companies that are borderline as far as I can tell: BBC and the (Australian) ABC. Other media companies that have never held my trust: All of the Rupert Murdoch stable. (Including Fox, Sky News, WSJ, News of the World, etc)

brutal_chaos_ 6y ago
I wish I didn't agree, but I really do. I find myself looking abroad for news about the US. One must go through multiple countries as each have their own bent towards the US. Lot's of extra work, but definitely worthwhile for newsjunkies like my SO and me. EDIT: words fixed Which US news sources today stay on the neutral/journalistic path in the US? Everything will have a slant of some kind of course, though hopefully there are outlets that are far less egregious. Edit adt'l: a question appears!
austhrow743 6y ago
How did Reuters lose it?
- simonblack 6y ago
  When you have a broad range of news sources and you can compare them over a longish period, you start to see patterns and biases. Reuters was one of the most surprising, for me, losses of trust. I always had Reuters 'way up there' in truthfulness, but I was forced to change my mind. These days, they stick to Establishment points of view, not necessarily the truth.
4eor0 6y ago
They’ve always had an agenda; sway opinion and leverage that power. I wonder if they’re less trustworthy or you’re more aware of their untrustworthiness?