6 ms·

This whole series of events went down with such a stink. My ordinary perception of the NYT is that of a beacon of journalism. They publish hundreds of pieces a

This whole series of events went down with such a stink. My ordinary perception of the NYT is that of a beacon of journalism. They publish hundreds of pieces a day, and while the newspaper is left-leaning, it is also known for its high quality going back at least 100 years. My question is, does their utterly childish reaction to Scott Alexander's wish to be anonymous invalidate the whole newspaper's integrity? Don't get me wrong, I don't completely agree with the whole 'liberal MSM' disillusionment, but does this mess point to deeper problems specific to the newspaper? I have no idea, and would appreciate it if somebody clarified this for me.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I'm somewhat echoing another comment about this that I saw, but the thing I find so atrocious about the NYT article is that it's actually difficult to call it a "hit piece", because it contains so little substantive information of any kind. Instead, it goes to painstaking lengths to paint pretty much everything with the "alt-right extremists like it too, brush!" that the author's preconceived notions and biases are laid so transparently bare.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  The article has two major problems. The first is the one you're describing, that there's barely anything substantive at all. The second is that for what evidence that is linked, if you follow those links and actually read the source material they contradict what the author says in pretty blatant ways (Alexander points this out in his response). For one example he didn't cover, the author deliberately mischaracterizes, again, what Damore said in his memo, saying it claimed it was only biological differences that explain the gender disparities in tech. >That week, a Google employee named James Damore wrote a memo arguing that the low number of women in technical positions at the company was a result of biological differences, not anything else — a memo he was later fired over. One Slate Star Codex reader on Reddit noted the similarities to the writing on the blog. There's so much wrong with these two sentences. The first is just flat out false, and that they didn't link to the original material in the piece - but instead to another NYT article, which links to a Vice article which finally has the primary source - is really telling. The second sentence is just ... what? Some redditor noted some similarities? This is breathtakingly embarrassing journalism. Maybe we can attribute it to just lazy prose. Okay, then where is the editor? It's so poorly written that, you're right, calling it a "hit piece" is giving it too much credit.
  - MattGaiser 6y ago
    > Some redditor noted some similarities? This is breathtakingly embarrassing journalism. Maybe we can attribute it to just lazy prose. Some journalists seem to to farm stories off social media.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Is the goal to find an audience that is willing to lend an ear and then simply tell them what they want to hear even if it is not true? Reminds me of the news reporting about Stallman.
MattGaiser 6y ago
This piece may be of interest: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/inside-the-new-york-times-heated-reckoning-with-itself.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/inside-the-new-york-...
drak0n1c 6y ago
There's an interesting phenomenon called the "Gell-Mann Amnesia" effect. About how we only see the flaws in modern journalism and punditry when it talks about a person, event, or niche that we have personal experience with. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ Regarding reputation: All media outlets big and small have the mutually beneficial habit of copying each others' work with essentially reposted articles. The uniformity of narrative on various events and topics that come up - the circular referencing called the "media cycle" - bolsters the appearance that the original outlet is generally right on things. Retractions are often printed by the New York Times, and to their credit they are very rigorous in doing so. But it is not on the front page, and only a small fraction of those who read the original pieces or their headlines return to see the retraction. When it comes to online work, silent edits are increasingly common. Luckily there is a tracker to see where those are happening and whether NYT does it more than other outlets: http://newsdiffs.org/ http://newsdiffs.org/
bArray 6y ago
> does their utterly childish reaction to Scott Alexander's > wish to be anonymous invalidate the whole newspaper's > integrity? There is some content I consumed years ago and thought was quite reliable, until recently, something that was published just rubbed me the wrong way. I did some digging and found that I was right, that there was some issue. I then went back and applied this same skepticism to some of the previous publications - and found that some of them also had problems, and that I had overlooked them. At the time, they seemed correct, but I had simply overlooked some issues based on their perceived credibility. My point is - now you have seen that it is at least possible for NYT to publish biased and outright incorrect content, they have shown their capability to do so, therefore you must consider that other publications may also be incorrect. I would suggest that at least in the immediate future, you perform your own cross-referencing. You need to determine if this was just a slip up, or one obvious misstep in a long line of non-obvious missteps. Generally, I encourage people to read both a moderate left-wing and right-wing source. Where they conflict is usually where you have to do your own digging. For example, was that Tweet taken out of context? Did that image/video really show that? Is this person really as they claim? I feel like a lot of modern journalism is really hidden in the framing of the evidence.
mola 6y ago
To me the childish party seems to be Scott Siskind. If ethical concerns were real, he could just not write about his patients. If he didn't want to be news worthy, he didn't have to try and become a successful blogger. He decided to be part of public discourse. But he wants it strictly on his terms, well, that's childish...
- leereeves 6y ago
  The NYT themselves recognize the importance of anonymity. They don't consider it childish: > “We take seriously our obligations to protect sources,” Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said. “Many important stories in sensitive areas like politics, national security and business could never be reported if our journalists violated that trust.” [1] And to be clear, though she said "source", that comment was about the author of an anonymous op-ed published in the NYT. Why does anonymity for authors cease to be important if people bypass the NYT and communicate with the public directly? 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/anonymous-miles-taylor-new-york-times-senior-official/2020/10/28/73634c0a-1959-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/anonymous-mil... Edit to clarify once again: This example is the NYT protecting the author of an anonymous op-ed. If sharing an opinion makes someone a source, isn't everyone a source? Or does it only count, and become worthy of protection, if published in the NYT, not on one's own blog?
  - cavisne 6y ago
    In that case they used anonymity to suit them (increase the importance of a person who ended up being way lower ranked then was in implied). Anonymity is a weapon of MSM, they use it to write poorly sourced stories saying whatever they want, and remove it to hurt people they don’t like.
  - mola 6y ago
    He is not a source, he is the subject of the piece. Source anonimity is important because otherwise sources in delicate situations will never talk to the press. This has nothing to do with the issue here and I don't understand why would you see it otherwise.
  - deleted 6y ago
toomim 6y ago
I used to respect the NYTimes, and it was a real shock to realize what's happening now, but they've really lost their reputation to me in the last year. It's really sad. This paper had such honor. Now it's a horror show.
runsWphotons 6y ago
Another questionable thing from today: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1361084482640560129 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1361084482640560129

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

I'm somewhat echoing another comment about this that I saw, but the thing I find so atrocious about the NYT article is that it's actually difficult to call it a "hit piece", because it contains so little substantive information of any kind. Instead, it goes to painstaking lengths to paint pretty much everything with the "alt-right extremists like it too, brush!" that the author's preconceived notions and biases are laid so transparently bare.

remarkEon 6y ago
The article has two major problems. The first is the one you're describing, that there's barely anything substantive at all. The second is that for what evidence that is linked, if you follow those links and actually read the source material they contradict what the author says in pretty blatant ways (Alexander points this out in his response). For one example he didn't cover, the author deliberately mischaracterizes, again, what Damore said in his memo, saying it claimed it was only biological differences that explain the gender disparities in tech. >That week, a Google employee named James Damore wrote a memo arguing that the low number of women in technical positions at the company was a result of biological differences, not anything else — a memo he was later fired over. One Slate Star Codex reader on Reddit noted the similarities to the writing on the blog. There's so much wrong with these two sentences. The first is just flat out false, and that they didn't link to the original material in the piece - but instead to another NYT article, which links to a Vice article which finally has the primary source - is really telling. The second sentence is just ... what? Some redditor noted some similarities? This is breathtakingly embarrassing journalism. Maybe we can attribute it to just lazy prose. Okay, then where is the editor? It's so poorly written that, you're right, calling it a "hit piece" is giving it too much credit.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > Some redditor noted some similarities? This is breathtakingly embarrassing journalism. Maybe we can attribute it to just lazy prose. Some journalists seem to to farm stories off social media.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Is the goal to find an audience that is willing to lend an ear and then simply tell them what they want to hear even if it is not true? Reminds me of the news reporting about Stallman.

MattGaiser 6y ago

This piece may be of interest: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/inside-the-new-york-times-heated-reckoning-with-itself.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/inside-the-new-york-...

drak0n1c 6y ago

There's an interesting phenomenon called the "Gell-Mann Amnesia" effect. About how we only see the flaws in modern journalism and punditry when it talks about a person, event, or niche that we have personal experience with. https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ Regarding reputation: All media outlets big and small have the mutually beneficial habit of copying each others' work with essentially reposted articles. The uniformity of narrative on various events and topics that come up - the circular referencing called the "media cycle" - bolsters the appearance that the original outlet is generally right on things. Retractions are often printed by the New York Times, and to their credit they are very rigorous in doing so. But it is not on the front page, and only a small fraction of those who read the original pieces or their headlines return to see the retraction. When it comes to online work, silent edits are increasingly common. Luckily there is a tracker to see where those are happening and whether NYT does it more than other outlets: http://newsdiffs.org/ http://newsdiffs.org/

bArray 6y ago

> does their utterly childish reaction to Scott Alexander's > wish to be anonymous invalidate the whole newspaper's > integrity? There is some content I consumed years ago and thought was quite reliable, until recently, something that was published just rubbed me the wrong way. I did some digging and found that I was right, that there was some issue. I then went back and applied this same skepticism to some of the previous publications - and found that some of them also had problems, and that I had overlooked them. At the time, they seemed correct, but I had simply overlooked some issues based on their perceived credibility. My point is - now you have seen that it is at least possible for NYT to publish biased and outright incorrect content, they have shown their capability to do so, therefore you must consider that other publications may also be incorrect. I would suggest that at least in the immediate future, you perform your own cross-referencing. You need to determine if this was just a slip up, or one obvious misstep in a long line of non-obvious missteps. Generally, I encourage people to read both a moderate left-wing and right-wing source. Where they conflict is usually where you have to do your own digging. For example, was that Tweet taken out of context? Did that image/video really show that? Is this person really as they claim? I feel like a lot of modern journalism is really hidden in the framing of the evidence.

mola 6y ago

To me the childish party seems to be Scott Siskind. If ethical concerns were real, he could just not write about his patients. If he didn't want to be news worthy, he didn't have to try and become a successful blogger. He decided to be part of public discourse. But he wants it strictly on his terms, well, that's childish...

leereeves 6y ago
The NYT themselves recognize the importance of anonymity. They don't consider it childish: > “We take seriously our obligations to protect sources,” Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said. “Many important stories in sensitive areas like politics, national security and business could never be reported if our journalists violated that trust.” [1] And to be clear, though she said "source", that comment was about the author of an anonymous op-ed published in the NYT. Why does anonymity for authors cease to be important if people bypass the NYT and communicate with the public directly? 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/anonymous-miles-taylor-new-york-times-senior-official/2020/10/28/73634c0a-1959-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/anonymous-mil... Edit to clarify once again: This example is the NYT protecting the author of an anonymous op-ed. If sharing an opinion makes someone a source, isn't everyone a source? Or does it only count, and become worthy of protection, if published in the NYT, not on one's own blog?
- cavisne 6y ago
  In that case they used anonymity to suit them (increase the importance of a person who ended up being way lower ranked then was in implied). Anonymity is a weapon of MSM, they use it to write poorly sourced stories saying whatever they want, and remove it to hurt people they don’t like.
- mola 6y ago
  He is not a source, he is the subject of the piece. Source anonimity is important because otherwise sources in delicate situations will never talk to the press. This has nothing to do with the issue here and I don't understand why would you see it otherwise.
- deleted 6y ago

toomim 6y ago

I used to respect the NYTimes, and it was a real shock to realize what's happening now, but they've really lost their reputation to me in the last year. It's really sad. This paper had such honor. Now it's a horror show.

runsWphotons 6y ago

Another questionable thing from today: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1361084482640560129 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1361084482640560129