3 ms·

> I don't call NYTimes work worthless easily. Nor should you in this case, because this isn't NYT work. It's a guest essay by Cal Newport, who isn't an NYT emp

by js2 6y ago

> I don't call NYTimes work worthless easily. Nor should you in this case, because this isn't NYT work. It's a guest essay by Cal Newport, who isn't an NYT employee. At best, you could argue that it doesn't meet their standards for guest essays or that they should have higher standards: https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014809107-How-to-submit-a-Guest-Essay-for-Opinion https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014809107-How-... The NYT needs to do a better job perhaps distinguishing opinion from news and guests from columnists from editorial board work. In the print edition, it's clearer from the layout, but on the web, it all runs together. That said, this is clearly marked in red at the top as "opinion" with the author's name. It's also from the "Sunday Review" section which is all opinion pieces: https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion/sunday https://www.nytimes.com/section/opinion/sunday

a4isms 6y ago
I have a house. It has a front lawn. If I set up guest chairs on my front lawn and invite the world to sit on those chairs and give their opinion, it’s still opinion being broadcast from my lawn with my endorsement implied by the fact that I set the whole thing up and charge for advertising banners laid out at the speakers’ feet. The fact that I nudge-nudge wink-wink don’t endorse these opinions, and that I don’t formally employ the speakers is wildly irrelevant. If I don’t want to be accountable for the quality or correctness of their opinions, I shouldn’t put out the chairs and invite people to sit down and hold forth. I think we need to get rid of this pretend distinction between “opinion” and “editorial.” It’s all stuff a newspaper promotes, just as every talking head on Fox News is something Fox chooses to broadcast for money.
- passivate 6y ago
  > If I don’t want to be accountable for the quality or correctness of their opinions, I shouldn’t put out the chairs and invite people to sit down and hold forth. What metric are you using to objectively decide the "correctness" of an opinion? Can you propose a system that would work? I'm sure many publications are looking for one..

by js2 6y ago

a4isms 6y ago

I have a house. It has a front lawn. If I set up guest chairs on my front lawn and invite the world to sit on those chairs and give their opinion, it’s still opinion being broadcast from my lawn with my endorsement implied by the fact that I set the whole thing up and charge for advertising banners laid out at the speakers’ feet. The fact that I nudge-nudge wink-wink don’t endorse these opinions, and that I don’t formally employ the speakers is wildly irrelevant. If I don’t want to be accountable for the quality or correctness of their opinions, I shouldn’t put out the chairs and invite people to sit down and hold forth. I think we need to get rid of this pretend distinction between “opinion” and “editorial.” It’s all stuff a newspaper promotes, just as every talking head on Fox News is something Fox chooses to broadcast for money.

passivate 6y ago
> If I don’t want to be accountable for the quality or correctness of their opinions, I shouldn’t put out the chairs and invite people to sit down and hold forth. What metric are you using to objectively decide the "correctness" of an opinion? Can you propose a system that would work? I'm sure many publications are looking for one..