5 ms·

I don't get why this seems like a big deal or a negative thing. Why wouldn't you want reporters to be critical? Isn't that like the whole point. That's even why

by tayo42 4y ago

I don't get why this seems like a big deal or a negative thing. Why wouldn't you want reporters to be critical? Isn't that like the whole point. That's even why we have freedom of press in the 1st amendment, so journalists can be critical.

ajhurliman 4y ago
“Critical” in this context is a synonym with “negative”.
blacksmith_tb 4y ago
Yes and no, it's important to have critical reporting, but imagine say that all reporting on medicine could only be critical, no articles about breakthroughs in cancer treatment or curing disease, all malpractice and ballooning costs. That wouldn't be wrong, but it'd be incomplete?
- mehlmao 4y ago
  I'm sure if Facebook cured cancer that would get them favorable coverage. Right now their products decrease quality of life, not increase it.
  - snovv_crash 4y ago
    They're doing awesome things for VR hardware but all people can seem to see there is that it isn't making money.
    - lscdlscd 4y ago
      They're also defining, in the public's imagination, the primary use case of VR to be corporate meeting space. That's bad for VR and bad for society.
  - parineum 4y ago
    I wouldn't really argue about that now, personally, but I know a lot of people who are still on Facebook for whom have compelling reasons to stay and I think that was much more true in the past. That said, Meta isn't the only tech company. Twitter, for example, a place journalists love for the direct-to-consumer style reporting.
- aussiesnack 4y ago
  No. "Critical" (in the defensible sense) reporting of breakthroughs would involve checking of the science behind the breakthrough, probing the ethics and finances, etc. Ideally this should always be how tech journalism is conducted, otherwise it actually isn't journalism at all, it's just PR or trade writing. With fast news cycles this may not be practical for every single column cm, but it must be the default. "Critical" in the pop sense (making a worthiness judgement) is not altogether avoidable, but it should be marginal in journalism. This is what Opinion is for. What Yglesias & Piper are saying, in effect, is that the NYT made a top-down directive that tech coverage should be negatively-slanted Opinion.
glutamate 4y ago
Agree, I don't think people need to realise the amount of $$$ for tech PR and there needs to be a counter to this.
Analemma_ 4y ago
Being critical when the facts warrant it is great. Deciding in advance what the tone of coverage will be before you know any facts, and forbidding ipso facto any positive coverage, is not the whole point. That's an appalling abdication of journalistic ethics actually.
Bukhmanizer 4y ago
I don’t really get how people keep misunderstanding the point that it’s not that journalists are being critical, it’s that they’re being selectively critical to propagate their own interests. The absurdity of the NYT crying over big tech for practices the NYT uses all the time ( dark patterns, user tracking, algorithmic curation, etc. ) should not go unnoticed.
- tayo42 4y ago
  For me, this is one of the complaints > Almost never curious about technology or in awe of progress and potential. Why does it need to be in awe? that seems like an extreme in an unproductive direction. > it’s that they’re being selectively critical to propagate their own interests. where in the thread is the support for this?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - blululu 4y ago
    It’s not but a basic Google search should show some of the more clear examples of the NYT using aggressive spyware for ads, AB modifying stories in real time to drive engagement, and subscription policies that are virtually impossible to back out of for people outside of California.
    - trs8080 4y ago
      Therefore they're not allowed to report on malfeasance in the technology sector?
      - blululu 4y ago
        Logically no, but there are good reasons to distrust and despise hypocrites.
        matt-attack 4y ago
tensor 4y ago
That's not the whole point in my mind. What I'm looking for from journalists is a balanced, accurate, and objective reporting. That does involve being critical, but it also involves reporting on the positive aspects. A directive to cast an entire industry in a negative light regardless of the actual issues at play is NOT good journalism.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  There is no such things as objective reporting. Everyone recounting an event be it journalists or historians will inject some bias in its récollection. What you should want is journalists to be thorough in their fact checking and open about their editorial line and where their interest lies. What’s annoying me here is that it’s both top-down and covert.
  - tensor 4y ago
    I understand that's the current thinking in journalism, but I actually disagree with it. I think giving people free license to editorialize is harmful. Even given that it's true that it's impossible to be bias free, I think it's important to try to be bias free. When you stop trying things get even more biased which is exactly the problem with journalism today. It is highly biased and inflammatory and actually encourages people to be more tribal rather than try to come together and compromise despite their differences. I'm ok with not agreeing with the journalism industry here. I think they had it right 20 years ago.
  - snovv_crash 4y ago
    Just because journalists are human and as such can't be completely objective, doesn't mean they shouldn't strive to be objective. This is what civilization is built on, constraining our base impulses and acting with logic and empathy.
tqi 4y ago
Further in the thread: > from an editorial integrity perspective there's a big difference between 'it's good to write hard-hitting exposes' and 'it's good to have a top-down editorial directive about the tenor of coverage'.
fasthands9 4y ago
I think the tech page used to look more like the travel page today https://www.nytimes.com/section/travel https://www.nytimes.com/section/travel If you take a look, its not doing investigations. Its just talking about cool places. Tech used to just be talking about cool gadgets. I believe them when they say it was "top down" but also it was self-evident that this would happen if tech companies went to a small part of the economy to the biggest in the world. You can talk about the rivalries between NYTimes and FB/Twitter - but ultimately it just seems like they decided to treat it like a serious matter which was predictable/good. If overnight the airline and hotel companies became the most powerful in the world, then I think the travel section would be more critical and it would have nothing to do with NYT trying to get revenge.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
elpool2 4y ago
It's the difference between a movie critic who carefully critiques movies honestly and one that decides to write a negative review before even seeing the movie. Both of them are being "critical", but in very different ways. I think the NYT probably wanted to be the former but drifted into becoming the latter.
- trs8080 4y ago
  > decides to write a negative review before even seeing the movie Nobody claimed this was happening. Just because the NYT says "we're only doing investigative pieces on tech," doesn't mean that they start fabricating lies. It just means they don't do fluff pieces. This is the preferred approach - for example, I don't want coverage of the cuddly PR that the oil industry puts out, I want investigative pieces that uncover malfeasance.
  - bryan_w 4y ago
    You may have mis-parsed what the poster was saying. Imagine going to review the Ghostbusters reboot, but even before stepping into the theater, you decide you are going to write a negative review. That doesn't require fabricating lies, but most would say its an unfair/dishonest way to do movie reviews.
aussiesnack 4y ago
There's an ambiguity between 2 uses of the word 'critical'. Journalism should by default be 'critical' in the academic sense (questioning, probing, analytical). When reporting on powerful entities who throw resources into media management (governments & corporations), journalists should be particularly careful not to parrot PR. It's clear to me from the context that the Piper & Yglesias are not talking about this - they're saying there was top-down pressure on journalists to be critical in the popular sense of tone or judgement: ie. negative, carping. That's entirely different. The NYT claims to uphold the traditional news media distinction between reportage and opinion. Directives of the type Yglesias & Piper claim would clearly violate that distinction.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
It can create negative incentives. Case in point is Bloomberg's mandate to "move markets" leading to publication of lies like the Supermicro incident.
friedman23 4y ago
How about journalists just report the truth?
lr4444lr 4y ago
Critical, yes. Oppositional, no.
maxerickson 4y ago
Directing the tone prior to the articles being written is the weird thing.
throwoutway 4y ago
> Why wouldn't you want reporters to be critical? I wish more journalists would be critical, especially where it counts (e.g. interviewing politicians). But for a top-down directive to be negative, regardless of the truth, no - that's unacceptable.

by tayo42 4y ago

ajhurliman 4y ago

“Critical” in this context is a synonym with “negative”.

blacksmith_tb 4y ago

Yes and no, it's important to have critical reporting, but imagine say that all reporting on medicine could only be critical, no articles about breakthroughs in cancer treatment or curing disease, all malpractice and ballooning costs. That wouldn't be wrong, but it'd be incomplete?

mehlmao 4y ago
I'm sure if Facebook cured cancer that would get them favorable coverage. Right now their products decrease quality of life, not increase it.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  They're doing awesome things for VR hardware but all people can seem to see there is that it isn't making money.
  - lscdlscd 4y ago
    They're also defining, in the public's imagination, the primary use case of VR to be corporate meeting space. That's bad for VR and bad for society.
- parineum 4y ago
  I wouldn't really argue about that now, personally, but I know a lot of people who are still on Facebook for whom have compelling reasons to stay and I think that was much more true in the past. That said, Meta isn't the only tech company. Twitter, for example, a place journalists love for the direct-to-consumer style reporting.
aussiesnack 4y ago
No. "Critical" (in the defensible sense) reporting of breakthroughs would involve checking of the science behind the breakthrough, probing the ethics and finances, etc. Ideally this should always be how tech journalism is conducted, otherwise it actually isn't journalism at all, it's just PR or trade writing. With fast news cycles this may not be practical for every single column cm, but it must be the default. "Critical" in the pop sense (making a worthiness judgement) is not altogether avoidable, but it should be marginal in journalism. This is what Opinion is for. What Yglesias & Piper are saying, in effect, is that the NYT made a top-down directive that tech coverage should be negatively-slanted Opinion.

glutamate 4y ago

Agree, I don't think people need to realise the amount of $$$ for tech PR and there needs to be a counter to this.

Analemma_ 4y ago

Being critical when the facts warrant it is great. Deciding in advance what the tone of coverage will be before you know any facts, and forbidding ipso facto any positive coverage, is not the whole point. That's an appalling abdication of journalistic ethics actually.

Bukhmanizer 4y ago

I don’t really get how people keep misunderstanding the point that it’s not that journalists are being critical, it’s that they’re being selectively critical to propagate their own interests. The absurdity of the NYT crying over big tech for practices the NYT uses all the time ( dark patterns, user tracking, algorithmic curation, etc. ) should not go unnoticed.

tayo42 4y ago
For me, this is one of the complaints > Almost never curious about technology or in awe of progress and potential. Why does it need to be in awe? that seems like an extreme in an unproductive direction. > it’s that they’re being selectively critical to propagate their own interests. where in the thread is the support for this?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- blululu 4y ago
  It’s not but a basic Google search should show some of the more clear examples of the NYT using aggressive spyware for ads, AB modifying stories in real time to drive engagement, and subscription policies that are virtually impossible to back out of for people outside of California.
  - trs8080 4y ago
    Therefore they're not allowed to report on malfeasance in the technology sector?
    - blululu 4y ago
      Logically no, but there are good reasons to distrust and despise hypocrites.
      - matt-attack 4y ago

tensor 4y ago

That's not the whole point in my mind. What I'm looking for from journalists is a balanced, accurate, and objective reporting. That does involve being critical, but it also involves reporting on the positive aspects. A directive to cast an entire industry in a negative light regardless of the actual issues at play is NOT good journalism.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
There is no such things as objective reporting. Everyone recounting an event be it journalists or historians will inject some bias in its récollection. What you should want is journalists to be thorough in their fact checking and open about their editorial line and where their interest lies. What’s annoying me here is that it’s both top-down and covert.
- tensor 4y ago
  I understand that's the current thinking in journalism, but I actually disagree with it. I think giving people free license to editorialize is harmful. Even given that it's true that it's impossible to be bias free, I think it's important to try to be bias free. When you stop trying things get even more biased which is exactly the problem with journalism today. It is highly biased and inflammatory and actually encourages people to be more tribal rather than try to come together and compromise despite their differences. I'm ok with not agreeing with the journalism industry here. I think they had it right 20 years ago.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  Just because journalists are human and as such can't be completely objective, doesn't mean they shouldn't strive to be objective. This is what civilization is built on, constraining our base impulses and acting with logic and empathy.

tqi 4y ago

Further in the thread: > from an editorial integrity perspective there's a big difference between 'it's good to write hard-hitting exposes' and 'it's good to have a top-down editorial directive about the tenor of coverage'.

fasthands9 4y ago

I think the tech page used to look more like the travel page today https://www.nytimes.com/section/travel https://www.nytimes.com/section/travel If you take a look, its not doing investigations. Its just talking about cool places. Tech used to just be talking about cool gadgets. I believe them when they say it was "top down" but also it was self-evident that this would happen if tech companies went to a small part of the economy to the biggest in the world. You can talk about the rivalries between NYTimes and FB/Twitter - but ultimately it just seems like they decided to treat it like a serious matter which was predictable/good. If overnight the airline and hotel companies became the most powerful in the world, then I think the travel section would be more critical and it would have nothing to do with NYT trying to get revenge.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

elpool2 4y ago

It's the difference between a movie critic who carefully critiques movies honestly and one that decides to write a negative review before even seeing the movie. Both of them are being "critical", but in very different ways. I think the NYT probably wanted to be the former but drifted into becoming the latter.

trs8080 4y ago
> decides to write a negative review before even seeing the movie Nobody claimed this was happening. Just because the NYT says "we're only doing investigative pieces on tech," doesn't mean that they start fabricating lies. It just means they don't do fluff pieces. This is the preferred approach - for example, I don't want coverage of the cuddly PR that the oil industry puts out, I want investigative pieces that uncover malfeasance.
- bryan_w 4y ago
  You may have mis-parsed what the poster was saying. Imagine going to review the Ghostbusters reboot, but even before stepping into the theater, you decide you are going to write a negative review. That doesn't require fabricating lies, but most would say its an unfair/dishonest way to do movie reviews.

aussiesnack 4y ago

There's an ambiguity between 2 uses of the word 'critical'. Journalism should by default be 'critical' in the academic sense (questioning, probing, analytical). When reporting on powerful entities who throw resources into media management (governments & corporations), journalists should be particularly careful not to parrot PR. It's clear to me from the context that the Piper & Yglesias are not talking about this - they're saying there was top-down pressure on journalists to be critical in the popular sense of tone or judgement: ie. negative, carping. That's entirely different. The NYT claims to uphold the traditional news media distinction between reportage and opinion. Directives of the type Yglesias & Piper claim would clearly violate that distinction.

kevin_thibedeau 4y ago

It can create negative incentives. Case in point is Bloomberg's mandate to "move markets" leading to publication of lies like the Supermicro incident.

friedman23 4y ago

How about journalists just report the truth?

lr4444lr 4y ago

Critical, yes. Oppositional, no.

maxerickson 4y ago

Directing the tone prior to the articles being written is the weird thing.

throwoutway 4y ago

> Why wouldn't you want reporters to be critical? I wish more journalists would be critical, especially where it counts (e.g. interviewing politicians). But for a top-down directive to be negative, regardless of the truth, no - that's unacceptable.