4 ms·

Curious, Are there earlier examples of negligence, prior to the episode of "weapons of mass destruction"? When did the decline really start?

GranularRecipe 5y ago
cf Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent_(film))
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  Does he cite specific examples? I dont reject the thesis but im curious about the evidence.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kevinschumacher 5y ago
    Yes, for about 400 pages.
- radmuzom 5y ago
  This book was life changing for me. I also watched '12 Angry Men' around the same time as I read the book. I sometimes joke that these should be required reading or watching before someone is allowed to post an internet comment.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
The answer probably depends on the specific geographic and political distance of the commenter related to the New York Times. Here's one critique in the form of a song: https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/i-am-the-very-model-of-a-new-york-times-contrarian.amp https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/i-am-the-very-model-of-a-n...
elliekelly 5y ago
I recently watched “How to Become a Tyrant” and they mentioned a NYT reporter in the 30s, the Moscow bureau chief IIRC, who was more or less bribed by Stalin* to write articles denying people were starving in Ukraine. He even won a pulitzer for the “reporting”. I don’t know that it was the start of “the decline” of the New York Times (and full disclosure: I subscribe) but the WMDs weren’t the first egregiously wrong reporting. Searching for anything relating to NYT and Ukraine obviously gives a lot of more recent results but I found this Huffington Post article[1] that I think has enough background to point you in the right direction if you’re curious to learn more. And I think this[2] is the journalist’s wikipedia article. Edit: It was Stalin he had a very friendly relationship with, not Lenin. [1]https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a15c588e4b0f401dfa7ecce https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a15c588e4b0f401dfa7ecce [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Clubber 5y ago
  They recently did a movie on this: Mr. Jones. It was really good. You can probably catch it on Netflix or something similar. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/
ameminator 5y ago
There have been some noticeable stinkers that I have been aware of for maybe 20 years, up to and including the Jason Blair affair. However, I have seen a steep decline in quality since 2010-2012.
dharmaturtle 5y ago
My opinion of the NYT plummeted when they doxxed Scott Alexander https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-times-article https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...
dahart 5y ago
A personal favorite example of mine was the article “Recycling is Garbage” from 1996 that is chock full of misinformation and continues to do damage today. I wouldn’t be surprised if the article was sponsored by the plastics industry. (I’m speculating with zero proof, it just feels and smells like paid propaganda and corporate interests.) The online version has had orders of magnitude more readers than the excellent rebuttal at the time by the Environmental Defense Fund, but the NYT gave the author another platform to reprise his anti-environmental rants again six years ago, where he repeated the untrue talking points. There are a lot of real problems with recycling, some of them stemming from lack of buy-in and participation, and these NYT articles are fueling the anti-recycling sentiment with myths, undermining the will to improve the situation. The article’s pushing and glorifying of throwing things away is even doing damage to the idea that we should reduce consumption of single use plastic packaging, which is far more important than trying to recycle plastic.

GranularRecipe 5y ago

cf Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent_(film))

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
Does he cite specific examples? I dont reject the thesis but im curious about the evidence.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kevinschumacher 5y ago
  Yes, for about 400 pages.
radmuzom 5y ago
This book was life changing for me. I also watched '12 Angry Men' around the same time as I read the book. I sometimes joke that these should be required reading or watching before someone is allowed to post an internet comment.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

The answer probably depends on the specific geographic and political distance of the commenter related to the New York Times. Here's one critique in the form of a song: https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/i-am-the-very-model-of-a-new-york-times-contrarian.amp https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/i-am-the-very-model-of-a-n...

elliekelly 5y ago

I recently watched “How to Become a Tyrant” and they mentioned a NYT reporter in the 30s, the Moscow bureau chief IIRC, who was more or less bribed by Stalin* to write articles denying people were starving in Ukraine. He even won a pulitzer for the “reporting”. I don’t know that it was the start of “the decline” of the New York Times (and full disclosure: I subscribe) but the WMDs weren’t the first egregiously wrong reporting. Searching for anything relating to NYT and Ukraine obviously gives a lot of more recent results but I found this Huffington Post article[1] that I think has enough background to point you in the right direction if you’re curious to learn more. And I think this[2] is the journalist’s wikipedia article. Edit: It was Stalin he had a very friendly relationship with, not Lenin. [1]https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a15c588e4b0f401dfa7ecce https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a15c588e4b0f401dfa7ecce [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Clubber 5y ago
They recently did a movie on this: Mr. Jones. It was really good. You can probably catch it on Netflix or something similar. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/

ameminator 5y ago

There have been some noticeable stinkers that I have been aware of for maybe 20 years, up to and including the Jason Blair affair. However, I have seen a steep decline in quality since 2010-2012.

dharmaturtle 5y ago

My opinion of the NYT plummeted when they doxxed Scott Alexander https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-times-article https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...

dahart 5y ago

A personal favorite example of mine was the article “Recycling is Garbage” from 1996 that is chock full of misinformation and continues to do damage today. I wouldn’t be surprised if the article was sponsored by the plastics industry. (I’m speculating with zero proof, it just feels and smells like paid propaganda and corporate interests.) The online version has had orders of magnitude more readers than the excellent rebuttal at the time by the Environmental Defense Fund, but the NYT gave the author another platform to reprise his anti-environmental rants again six years ago, where he repeated the untrue talking points. There are a lot of real problems with recycling, some of them stemming from lack of buy-in and participation, and these NYT articles are fueling the anti-recycling sentiment with myths, undermining the will to improve the situation. The article’s pushing and glorifying of throwing things away is even doing damage to the idea that we should reduce consumption of single use plastic packaging, which is far more important than trying to recycle plastic.