7 ms·

The problem with reading it as a story not about Scott is that there's no reason to use his professional name except to cause him problems.

by chipsa 6y ago

geofft 6y ago
As the article points out, the name is hardly a secret, and I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms. If a writer submits a story and the editor says, "Why'd you use a pseudonym," I'm not sure the writer gets to say, "They asked for one," because then why wouldn't everyone who genuinely is newsworthy and thinks they aren't newsworthy ask for one? If the writer says, "I didn't think it was worth finding out," the editor probably ought to question if the writer has actually done enough research on what they're reporting on - especially if the editor can find the name trivially. Remember that the NYT got in very public trouble recently for telling a story that turned out be false because they trusted a subject of the story too much. And even if it wasn't for that, the NYT is regularly in the business of reporting on situations where people would love to use pseudonyms to avoid accountability. It makes sense to me that they have a default policy/norm against it, and weren't able to justify overriding it in this particular case, especially given that the name was already public information. To be clear, I agree that there was no need to use his name to tell the story they were telling, and I think the world would have been a better place if they were able to. But I don't think it's only attributable to malice that they did.
- skissane 6y ago
  > I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms NYT was happy to write about Virgil Texas of Chapo Trap House without revealing his real name [0]. Implying that their actual rule is: yes to pseudonymity for people with whom we politically sympathise, no to pseudonymity for people with whom we don't. That kind of inconsistency isn't worthy of respect. [0] 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...
  - foldr 6y ago
    I don’t think consistency is actually that important here. I don’t expect the NYT’s editorial decisions to be perfectly consistent with each other as (a) they’re not necessarily being made by the same people and (b) the NYT makes a very large number of editorial decisions. I do expect those decisions to be justifiable considered individually on their merits. I don’t see any reason not to give Scott Alexander’s real name. The mere fact that he’d rather keep it a secret doesn’t strike me as a good reason.
    - skissane 6y ago
      When an organisation justifies its decisions by reference to its policies, evidence that it doesn't apply its policies consistently is relevant to the question of how much we should believe its purported justifications. An organisation worthy of respect will either be consistent, or will openly admit its inconsistency as a shortcoming when called out on it. I'm not expecting the NYT to do that, which is part of why I don't respect the NYT. (The NYT is free to prove me wrong, in which case I will adjust my view of it accordingly.) What reason did they have not to give Virgil Texas' real name? The article I cited acknowledged it as a pseudonym, so they knew it wasn't his real name. I'm sure they either know what his real name is, or they could have easily found it out – indeed, the first page of a Google search for "Virgil Texas real name" contains the answer. I think they should respect people's requests for pseudonymity unless there is a compelling public interest in not doing so – which means they wouldn't reveal either Virgil Texas or Scott Alexander's real names. Alternatively, if they don't agree they should default to respecting people's requests for pseudonymity, then they should be consistent in denying it, and deny it to Virgil Texas as well.
      - foldr 6y ago
        Policies get applied inconsistently all the time for very uninteresting reasons. Inconsistency is what happens by default unless people make an enormous and concerted effort to be consistent. I don’t personally see any inconsistency - just two case-by-case decisions that went in different directions. But even if we grant that the two decisions are inconsistent, I don’t see why this is supposed to be a big deal. It certainly doesn’t mean that one of the decisions is necessarily wrong or unjustified. The NYT has wide latitude to do as it wishes in any given case. The only interesting question here is whether there’s some overriding reason why the NYT should collude with Scott Alexander in keeping his identity semi-secret (it’s not like it was actually secret anyway). There just isn’t any such reason.

The problem with reading it as a story not about Scott is that there's no reason to use his professional name except to cause him problems.

by chipsa 6y ago

The problem with reading it as a story not about Scott is that there's no reason to use his professional name except to cause him problems.

geofft 6y ago

As the article points out, the name is hardly a secret, and I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms. If a writer submits a story and the editor says, "Why'd you use a pseudonym," I'm not sure the writer gets to say, "They asked for one," because then why wouldn't everyone who genuinely is newsworthy and thinks they aren't newsworthy ask for one? If the writer says, "I didn't think it was worth finding out," the editor probably ought to question if the writer has actually done enough research on what they're reporting on - especially if the editor can find the name trivially. Remember that the NYT got in very public trouble recently for telling a story that turned out be false because they trusted a subject of the story too much. And even if it wasn't for that, the NYT is regularly in the business of reporting on situations where people would love to use pseudonyms to avoid accountability. It makes sense to me that they have a default policy/norm against it, and weren't able to justify overriding it in this particular case, especially given that the name was already public information. To be clear, I agree that there was no need to use his name to tell the story they were telling, and I think the world would have been a better place if they were able to. But I don't think it's only attributable to malice that they did.

skissane 6y ago
> I suspect the important thing is that the NYT has no practice of using pseudonyms NYT was happy to write about Virgil Texas of Chapo Trap House without revealing his real name [0]. Implying that their actual rule is: yes to pseudonymity for people with whom we politically sympathise, no to pseudonymity for people with whom we don't. That kind of inconsistency isn't worthy of respect. [0] 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...
- foldr 6y ago
  I don’t think consistency is actually that important here. I don’t expect the NYT’s editorial decisions to be perfectly consistent with each other as (a) they’re not necessarily being made by the same people and (b) the NYT makes a very large number of editorial decisions. I do expect those decisions to be justifiable considered individually on their merits. I don’t see any reason not to give Scott Alexander’s real name. The mere fact that he’d rather keep it a secret doesn’t strike me as a good reason.
  - skissane 6y ago
    When an organisation justifies its decisions by reference to its policies, evidence that it doesn't apply its policies consistently is relevant to the question of how much we should believe its purported justifications. An organisation worthy of respect will either be consistent, or will openly admit its inconsistency as a shortcoming when called out on it. I'm not expecting the NYT to do that, which is part of why I don't respect the NYT. (The NYT is free to prove me wrong, in which case I will adjust my view of it accordingly.) What reason did they have not to give Virgil Texas' real name? The article I cited acknowledged it as a pseudonym, so they knew it wasn't his real name. I'm sure they either know what his real name is, or they could have easily found it out – indeed, the first page of a Google search for "Virgil Texas real name" contains the answer. I think they should respect people's requests for pseudonymity unless there is a compelling public interest in not doing so – which means they wouldn't reveal either Virgil Texas or Scott Alexander's real names. Alternatively, if they don't agree they should default to respecting people's requests for pseudonymity, then they should be consistent in denying it, and deny it to Virgil Texas as well.
    - foldr 6y ago
      Policies get applied inconsistently all the time for very uninteresting reasons. Inconsistency is what happens by default unless people make an enormous and concerted effort to be consistent. I don’t personally see any inconsistency - just two case-by-case decisions that went in different directions. But even if we grant that the two decisions are inconsistent, I don’t see why this is supposed to be a big deal. It certainly doesn’t mean that one of the decisions is necessarily wrong or unjustified. The NYT has wide latitude to do as it wishes in any given case. The only interesting question here is whether there’s some overriding reason why the NYT should collude with Scott Alexander in keeping his identity semi-secret (it’s not like it was actually secret anyway). There just isn’t any such reason.