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Imagine my name was printed in my early HN posts. Then imagine I became the most influential commenter on HN - to the point I was shifting political discourse o

Imagine my name was printed in my early HN posts. Then imagine I became the most influential commenter on HN - to the point I was shifting political discourse online. The idea of a newspaper not printing my name in a story about me would be absurd. It wouldn't really matter if I said it would hurt my current business or that my wife would be upset that I was commenting so much online. It isn't really the newspaper's job to worry about those things because, as you said, it isn't a PR piece.

remarkEon 6y ago
>It isn't really the newspaper's job to worry about those things... It's not the job of a major newspaper, which not only informs on but explicitly drives opinion, to consider the second order effects of their reporting?
- handmodel 6y ago
  I think that they have already thought hard about the second order effects of publishing full names and this is the conclusion they have come to for all articles. If I go to any NY Times article there are always full names attached. There is an article on a sex podcaster on the front-page now. She goes by her full name - but let's see she had asked just to go by her first name and also asked the NY Times not to report what medical/therapy qualification she did or did not have. In doing so, she could claim, it would jeopardize people she went to college with finding her talk about sex online on the podcast she publishes herself and spends time promoting. Should the NY Times honor that? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/style/emily-morse-masterclass-instagram-podcast.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/style/emily-morse-masterc...
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    In certain contexts, news orgs will publish full names when it's in the public interest. Very often, the subject or source in a story will request to remain anonymous and they typically honor this unless, again, there is a compelling public interest in not doing so. Subject to your example, it's really, really hard to understand why NYT wouldn't honor Alexander's request here since a) if you really wanted to you could find his full name online and b) they didn't use the same standard when reporting on Chapo Trap House (for just one example) [1], which has much more influence (and revenue generating activity) than SSC ever did. The reason the article you linked is quite different is, well, whoever that person is was explicitly trying to increase their profile via an interview with the NYT. It's already a literal puff piece. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-chapo-trap-house.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-sander... >The Chapo co-host Virgil Texas (he lives and works under that pseudonym) went to a nearby bar for a beer...
    - ahepp 6y ago
      I'd like to see a reference for the claim that very often, the subject in a news story will be granted anonymity (besides victims of sex crimes) The Virgil stuff is a moot point. There are several differences (difficulty of finding the name, consistent usage rather than anonymizing), but I don't see how it would change anything if they slipped up by letting him use a pseudonym. Unless you really do have evidence that they very often allow subjects anonymity?
      - handmodel 6y ago
        IMO from that example it seems hypocritical but I don't think that means they would have been wrong to use the real name of Virgil Texas. It would have been a totally acceptable and informative thing for a newspaper of record to print his real name - just as I think it is totally acceptable and informative to publish the real name of SSC. This is a newspaper. Providing information to the public. Their obligation is to their readers to provide valuable reported information.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        Unless you really do have evidence that they very often allow subjects anonymity? Like any American news firm, they regularly "allow" anonymity in "national security" pieces. Some will argue that this anonymity is for "sources" rather than "subjects", but invariably those groups are the same. Deep-state and MIC reptiles talk their own books, using these media firms as sock-puppets. Without anonymity the whole exercise would be obviously pointless. With anonymity they're able to stoke lots of fear of brown people.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    Here's an article they wrote about the rapper Kendrick Lamar Duckworth. You may notice they leave off his last name. There are many examples of the NYT doing this, using the names people are popularly known by rather than their real ones. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar-pulitzer-prize-damn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar...
    - handmodel 6y ago
      That's fine - but I 100% think the NYT should be allowed to write a article about Kendrick Lamar Duckworth tomorrow where they use his full name - even if he asked them not to. It isn't his decision. Do you think the NYT would be wrong to publish his last name just because he asked them not to use it? SSC yelling "I am not a public figure" has no meaning. He doesn't get to decide if he is a public figure or not. And it doesn't make any sense for public figures to be the arbiters of what facets of their life is public and which are not. He has a blog with hundreds-of-thousands of readers. I think that makes him a public figure. This probably comes up all the time (at least in the not-to-distant-past) with actors and actresses not wanting their real age reported. They could claim a right to privacy or say that while they are an artist - they aren't a public figure - but it isn't there right to make up the rules for public figure. The news media has an obligation to its readers to report and the concerns of the subject aren't the newspaper's job to worry about.
      - ALittleLight 6y ago
        I want to notice a small change in the goalposts. In your previous comment you wrote "If I go to any NY Times article there are always full names attached" and now we seem to be discussing whether the NYT has the right to publish full names against the wishes of the named person. It's an important shift because we're acknowledging the NYT makes this choice and chose to use Scott's full name over his objection, not because of any policy, but just because they wanted to. If Kendrick Lamar said "It would be better for my image if I was written about using my first and middle name and without my last name" because that's more consistent or he thinks "Duckworth" doesn't conjure the image of a rapper - then I'd say that the NYT should respect that. His concerns make sense and he's much more widely known by Kendrick Lamar than by Duckworth. There's no reason to include his last name, you don't know more or less about him by knowing it or not. It's a balancing act between no benefit on one side and some harm on the other. Seems clear what to do. I think the NYT has a legal right to publish full names if they want but I think it's a moral flaw that they do so. Same way, maybe it would be legal for you to walk up to a little girl and tell her she's ugly. That's not a crime, but it says something negative about you. You're doing harm for no reason or benefit.
leereeves 6y ago
The NYT protects the anonymity of authors "whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure" when it suits their agenda. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house...
- handmodel 6y ago
  imo the distinction between the subject of a profile, and a whistleblower, has long been established in the media. If they had reported an article on someone who was running around the White House trying to subvert things they obviously would publish the name of who was the person doing that - even if in the same article they did not name the sources of who was giving them that information The distinction between a source and a subject is clear and I think it is unfair to group these together
  - leereeves 6y ago
    > imo the distinction between the subject of a profile, and a whistleblower, has long been established in the media. It's quite a stretch to call the author of an opinion piece (as labelled by the NYT themselves) a "whistleblower".
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- ahepp 6y ago
  That's an opinion piece, not a news article. There's also a distinction between protecting a source, and excluding information about the subject of an article. Fwiw, I was highly critical of the op-ed from the start, and I think it's particularly outrageous now that the author is known to be extraordinarily less senior than one would have reasonably expected. And the NYT played an important role in starting the Iraq War with the help of their "anonymous sources". I have no problem criticizing the Times when they're wrong. I think it's an awful paper overall, that's almost entirely entertainment rather than anything that could be called "news".
invalidOrTaken 6y ago
Sure, but at that point, by their behavior, NYT devolves from "sacred guardians of democracy" to "fucking troll." Sure, it's not "their job" to worry about SSC. But then, nobody's paying me to be nice on HN. That's fine! I don't want money! I'm civil because it's good for the space, and because it's the right thing to do. If I weren't, I would, effectively, be an enemy of the space. SSC has been a beacon of...reasonableness, of niceness, of clarity (though not necessarily agreement), on the internet, for near a decade. You know what we call people who screw that up online? Trolls. Why should companies be any different? Nothing will happen, nobody is going to light their building on fire or whatever. Their name will just carry that much less weight in the future.
- handmodel 6y ago
  fwiw the NYT's slogan isn't "sacred guardians of democracy" or "Democracy Dies in Darkness". That's the Washington Post. It's slogan is "All The News That's Fit To Print". It is considered The Newspaper of Record for the US and sees itself as having value for future historical research.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    For WaPo, it's not so much a slogan as a mission statement.
ALittleLight 6y ago
It's hardly absurd. The NYT regularly uses the names people are known by rather than their literal names. For example, there is a rapper whose full name is Kendrick Lamar Duckworth but known to fans and the public as Kendrick Lamar. Similar, you might notice, to how Scott Alexander Sorkin is better known by his two first names. Example: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar-pulitzer-prize-damn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar... It makes more sense to refer to people by the names they are known by rather than their actual names, unless there is some compelling reason not to. In this case, I think there was a decent reason to do leave the name out and no news value to be gained by including it. As the article mentions, Scott's name was easily Google-able, so it's not like they were breaking something new. I can't imagine treating casual sociopathy like this as okay in any other profession. Why would it be for journalists? "Oh, your business and personal life would be damaged if I did this thing I don't need to do and doesn't really matter? Ha ha, too bad, I'm doing it anyway."
- randallsquared 6y ago
  > Similar, you might notice, to how Scott Alexander Sorkin is better known by his two first names. To be clear, it no longer matters as much, since he went to a lot of effort to minimize damage.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

remarkEon 6y ago

>It isn't really the newspaper's job to worry about those things... It's not the job of a major newspaper, which not only informs on but explicitly drives opinion, to consider the second order effects of their reporting?

handmodel 6y ago
I think that they have already thought hard about the second order effects of publishing full names and this is the conclusion they have come to for all articles. If I go to any NY Times article there are always full names attached. There is an article on a sex podcaster on the front-page now. She goes by her full name - but let's see she had asked just to go by her first name and also asked the NY Times not to report what medical/therapy qualification she did or did not have. In doing so, she could claim, it would jeopardize people she went to college with finding her talk about sex online on the podcast she publishes herself and spends time promoting. Should the NY Times honor that? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/style/emily-morse-masterclass-instagram-podcast.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/style/emily-morse-masterc...
- remarkEon 6y ago
  In certain contexts, news orgs will publish full names when it's in the public interest. Very often, the subject or source in a story will request to remain anonymous and they typically honor this unless, again, there is a compelling public interest in not doing so. Subject to your example, it's really, really hard to understand why NYT wouldn't honor Alexander's request here since a) if you really wanted to you could find his full name online and b) they didn't use the same standard when reporting on Chapo Trap House (for just one example) [1], which has much more influence (and revenue generating activity) than SSC ever did. The reason the article you linked is quite different is, well, whoever that person is was explicitly trying to increase their profile via an interview with the NYT. It's already a literal puff piece. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-chapo-trap-house.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/us/politics/bernie-sander... >The Chapo co-host Virgil Texas (he lives and works under that pseudonym) went to a nearby bar for a beer...
  - ahepp 6y ago
    I'd like to see a reference for the claim that very often, the subject in a news story will be granted anonymity (besides victims of sex crimes) The Virgil stuff is a moot point. There are several differences (difficulty of finding the name, consistent usage rather than anonymizing), but I don't see how it would change anything if they slipped up by letting him use a pseudonym. Unless you really do have evidence that they very often allow subjects anonymity?
    - handmodel 6y ago
      IMO from that example it seems hypocritical but I don't think that means they would have been wrong to use the real name of Virgil Texas. It would have been a totally acceptable and informative thing for a newspaper of record to print his real name - just as I think it is totally acceptable and informative to publish the real name of SSC. This is a newspaper. Providing information to the public. Their obligation is to their readers to provide valuable reported information.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Unless you really do have evidence that they very often allow subjects anonymity? Like any American news firm, they regularly "allow" anonymity in "national security" pieces. Some will argue that this anonymity is for "sources" rather than "subjects", but invariably those groups are the same. Deep-state and MIC reptiles talk their own books, using these media firms as sock-puppets. Without anonymity the whole exercise would be obviously pointless. With anonymity they're able to stoke lots of fear of brown people.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  Here's an article they wrote about the rapper Kendrick Lamar Duckworth. You may notice they leave off his last name. There are many examples of the NYT doing this, using the names people are popularly known by rather than their real ones. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar-pulitzer-prize-damn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar...
  - handmodel 6y ago
    That's fine - but I 100% think the NYT should be allowed to write a article about Kendrick Lamar Duckworth tomorrow where they use his full name - even if he asked them not to. It isn't his decision. Do you think the NYT would be wrong to publish his last name just because he asked them not to use it? SSC yelling "I am not a public figure" has no meaning. He doesn't get to decide if he is a public figure or not. And it doesn't make any sense for public figures to be the arbiters of what facets of their life is public and which are not. He has a blog with hundreds-of-thousands of readers. I think that makes him a public figure. This probably comes up all the time (at least in the not-to-distant-past) with actors and actresses not wanting their real age reported. They could claim a right to privacy or say that while they are an artist - they aren't a public figure - but it isn't there right to make up the rules for public figure. The news media has an obligation to its readers to report and the concerns of the subject aren't the newspaper's job to worry about.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      I want to notice a small change in the goalposts. In your previous comment you wrote "If I go to any NY Times article there are always full names attached" and now we seem to be discussing whether the NYT has the right to publish full names against the wishes of the named person. It's an important shift because we're acknowledging the NYT makes this choice and chose to use Scott's full name over his objection, not because of any policy, but just because they wanted to. If Kendrick Lamar said "It would be better for my image if I was written about using my first and middle name and without my last name" because that's more consistent or he thinks "Duckworth" doesn't conjure the image of a rapper - then I'd say that the NYT should respect that. His concerns make sense and he's much more widely known by Kendrick Lamar than by Duckworth. There's no reason to include his last name, you don't know more or less about him by knowing it or not. It's a balancing act between no benefit on one side and some harm on the other. Seems clear what to do. I think the NYT has a legal right to publish full names if they want but I think it's a moral flaw that they do so. Same way, maybe it would be legal for you to walk up to a little girl and tell her she's ugly. That's not a crime, but it says something negative about you. You're doing harm for no reason or benefit.

leereeves 6y ago

The NYT protects the anonymity of authors "whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure" when it suits their agenda. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house...

handmodel 6y ago
imo the distinction between the subject of a profile, and a whistleblower, has long been established in the media. If they had reported an article on someone who was running around the White House trying to subvert things they obviously would publish the name of who was the person doing that - even if in the same article they did not name the sources of who was giving them that information The distinction between a source and a subject is clear and I think it is unfair to group these together
- leereeves 6y ago
  > imo the distinction between the subject of a profile, and a whistleblower, has long been established in the media. It's quite a stretch to call the author of an opinion piece (as labelled by the NYT themselves) a "whistleblower".
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
ahepp 6y ago
That's an opinion piece, not a news article. There's also a distinction between protecting a source, and excluding information about the subject of an article. Fwiw, I was highly critical of the op-ed from the start, and I think it's particularly outrageous now that the author is known to be extraordinarily less senior than one would have reasonably expected. And the NYT played an important role in starting the Iraq War with the help of their "anonymous sources". I have no problem criticizing the Times when they're wrong. I think it's an awful paper overall, that's almost entirely entertainment rather than anything that could be called "news".

invalidOrTaken 6y ago

Sure, but at that point, by their behavior, NYT devolves from "sacred guardians of democracy" to "fucking troll." Sure, it's not "their job" to worry about SSC. But then, nobody's paying me to be nice on HN. That's fine! I don't want money! I'm civil because it's good for the space, and because it's the right thing to do. If I weren't, I would, effectively, be an enemy of the space. SSC has been a beacon of...reasonableness, of niceness, of clarity (though not necessarily agreement), on the internet, for near a decade. You know what we call people who screw that up online? Trolls. Why should companies be any different? Nothing will happen, nobody is going to light their building on fire or whatever. Their name will just carry that much less weight in the future.

handmodel 6y ago
fwiw the NYT's slogan isn't "sacred guardians of democracy" or "Democracy Dies in Darkness". That's the Washington Post. It's slogan is "All The News That's Fit To Print". It is considered The Newspaper of Record for the US and sees itself as having value for future historical research.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  For WaPo, it's not so much a slogan as a mission statement.

ALittleLight 6y ago

It's hardly absurd. The NYT regularly uses the names people are known by rather than their literal names. For example, there is a rapper whose full name is Kendrick Lamar Duckworth but known to fans and the public as Kendrick Lamar. Similar, you might notice, to how Scott Alexander Sorkin is better known by his two first names. Example: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar-pulitzer-prize-damn.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/arts/music/kendrick-lamar... It makes more sense to refer to people by the names they are known by rather than their actual names, unless there is some compelling reason not to. In this case, I think there was a decent reason to do leave the name out and no news value to be gained by including it. As the article mentions, Scott's name was easily Google-able, so it's not like they were breaking something new. I can't imagine treating casual sociopathy like this as okay in any other profession. Why would it be for journalists? "Oh, your business and personal life would be damaged if I did this thing I don't need to do and doesn't really matter? Ha ha, too bad, I'm doing it anyway."

randallsquared 6y ago
> Similar, you might notice, to how Scott Alexander Sorkin is better known by his two first names. To be clear, it no longer matters as much, since he went to a lot of effort to minimize damage.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]