5 ms·

It's interesting to me that the line between "this is important journalism" and "this is bad and we should stop it" seems to be arbitrary aesthetics around dist

It's interesting to me that the line between "this is important journalism" and "this is bad and we should stop it" seems to be arbitrary aesthetics around distribution medium and production style. If this is bad, would it also be bad for NYT to film the same things and publish a piece about how bad the situation is, with ads?

mpalmer 3y ago
If the only distinction you see between this and NYT content is medium and production style, I'm more curious to know how you personally define important journalism.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mgraczyk 3y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-drug.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-... There are some important differences related to consent and background info, but the high level criticism in TFA that "people are profiting by sharing imagery of fucked up drug users" is equally true of mainstream publications It's important journalism to the extent that it disseminates information or raises awareness of important conditions or facts
  - mpalmer 3y ago
    It's a messy gray area to be sure. Both parties want more reach and more revenue, so let's set those incentives aside. To me it seems that the worst accusation you can level at a news org like NYT is reaching for sensationalism and lurid "entertainment" to get clicks. But they are a (subjectively) trusted/credible news institution. There is an underlying mission and set of shared journalistic values behind what they do, not to mention an editorial process. Through these things there is at least a nod towards accountability. TikTok creators are not credible or trusted in the same sense, and they are under no obligation to a larger mission or set of norms, self-imposed or otherwise. They just want followers. With content like this, it seems they're doing the inverse of the NYT - they're reaching for credibility by creating content with the appearance of journalism. --- And to your point about consent, I'm sure there are people who did not or could not consent to their image being published. AFAIK there are no structures governing TikTok "journalism" that would prevent this sort of harm. For me, this is enough to totally disqualify this sort of thing as journalism.
    - mgraczyk 3y ago
      Yes I basically agree with all that.
    - ycdxvjp 3y ago
      The UN report on the Attention Economy quotes a study that says 0.5% of content produced is consumed by anyone and dropping. Platforms don't advertise it and have created a totally absurd industry where the limits of Consumption has no impact on the limits of Production. So there is no journalism going on. Content explodes and finite Attention fragments into smaller and smaller bits so Content Producers view counts stay up with ever diluting short lived impact. Consumption is not being measured right. If the you get a single viewer who then goes and reads 50 other things you are really getting 1/50th of that view. Self serving content producers and platforms don't talk about it at all. It's like watching home builders debating what they are building before the subprime meltdown.
      - mpalmer 3y ago
        You're not reading (the first sentence of) the report correctly. > By the 2000s, so much information was being generated worldwide that only a small fraction (0.5% in 2015) of the digital data generated was being analyzed at all. Information and its analysis is not equivalent to content and its consumption, nor can you extrapolate one from the other. That you seem to use this as the sole basis for your conspiratorial findings that we're in a content bubble and "platforms don't advertise it" is unfortunate.
        qp11 3y ago
        I think you are greatly over estimating how much impact analysis is having here. Not to mention skipping over the dilution and fragmentation of Attention (even of experts). Journalism value lies more in surfacing data/info rather than analyzing it - an MRI tech might be able to observe and detect cancer before everyone else, but that doesn't mean they are qualified docs or cancer researchers. Or whatever they think needs to be highlighted really needs everyones attention. The platforms regularly waste everyone's time and energy. Journos are in a similar position to the MRI tech and do call in experts to look at their data, but it all gets regularly drowned out by the info tsunami, plus experts usually need Time the more complex anything gets. The platforms profit from the expectation that what they promote, translates to action or solution instantly. And when it doesn't they don't indicate how much energy has been wasted. The info flows have to change for more action and less unnecessary attention capture. The MRI techs are getting too much attention without an equivalent increase in lives saved.
neilk 3y ago
You mean this one? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/health/opioids-drug-consumption-sites.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/health/opioids-drug-consu... The focus seems entirely different. It’s not about shock value. In any case, turning aside from the NYTimes specifically, of course aesthetics and context matters! That’s what photojournalism is! The camera only ever captures fragments of reality, and then the publisher will place that content in a completely different context (you scrolling through your phone). Headlines, editing, narration, captions, preview images, and simply where and how you find it - that all puts the raw data into a story, a media experience. The same raw video file can be edited to to inflame disgust or inspire empathy.
- mgraczyk 3y ago
  No, more like this one, where the main focus is on how fucked up a small number of specific people are https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-drug.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-...
  - neilk 3y ago
    I honestly don’t know what to tell you if you think these pieces are similar to random TikToks that are constructed to inspire horror and disgust. Andrew Callaghan does some interesting work that focuses on lurid topics but with unexpected sensitivity. In his recent piece on San Francisco street crime and drug addiction, there’s a subplot about a TikToker who is popular with conservative media for condemning and confronting street people. He is loathed by the social services and healthcare workers. https://youtu.be/URfCwT3UQy4 https://youtu.be/URfCwT3UQy4
    - mgraczyk 3y ago
      The first text in the NYT article on my phone is "Brooke Peder’s leg was amputated after an infection from a tranq wound bore into the bone. She hopes to save her arm, although she reluctantly injects tranq in it." They are both relying on shock and disgust to make money. I agree that NYT is far more fact based and substantive, but the core problem people seem to have with the TikTokers is almost just as bad in traditional journalism. Also yes I love Andrew Callahan, and the first scene of that video was shot 3 blocks from my office.
viraptor 3y ago
You're really looking at this at a surface level. Instead of production style consider: consent (was that person in a good state to make decisions), main topic (this is addiction in general -vs- look at this addicted person), amount of context (did you learn about anything beyond "this person is addicted"). Production style has next to nothing to do with whether it's journalism.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fuzzybear3965 3y ago
  > consent This is not, and should not be, an important factor in journalistic reporting. Often, the most valuable stories are those which would never receive consent by the relevant parties. > Addiction in general vs. the individual I don't understand. We should treat the problem as a statistical one without a personal human element? Absolutely not. Plenty of reports abound on statistics, already. A garish front-line perspective could be exactly what saves some kid from walking down that path in the future and what motivates some community activists or politicians to effect meaningful changes in their community.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    Consent of the victim. I don't care if someone doesn't consent to getting their crimes exposed. But if you started filming body damage the drug did to random people without asking them for consent, that would be a really shitty thing, even if informative in some way. > We should treat the problem as a statistical one without a personal human element? No, we shouldn't concentrate on specific people. This shouldn't be poverty porn. "There's an issue, here's an affected person who agreed to talk to us about it, here's more about the issue" - great personal element! "Look at this affected person, and this one, and this one, and this one, the end" - no, that's not reporting about the issue itself.
    - next_xibalba 3y ago
      Doing drugs in public is a crime in most places. So the victims are, in fact, all of us (including the TikTokers doing the filming).
noqc 3y ago
>would it also be bad for NYT to film the same things and publish a piece about how bad the situation is, with ads? Yes. Advertising, in which you pay someone to lie or exploit a fallacy (e.g. red wine associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease), is the opposite of journalism. The idea that you should fund one with the other is frankly horrific.
bsder 3y ago
Why is it that so many people on HN seem totally unable to fathom the concept of "intent"? If a TikTokker is trying to document this to get people help or change the situation, that's ... I don't want to say "good" but probably "acceptable". If a TikTokker is simply filming "spectacle" of people who probably cannot give reasonable consent, that is very much unacceptable. These are both true whether you replace "TikTok" with "Insta" or "NYTimes" or "WaPo".
- carstenhag 3y ago
  Agree, laws also differ between you stopping when there's an accident to take photos (in Germany called "Gaffer" or "persistent looker") and a journalist taking pictures to inform about this event. (Apparently there's been a new law, you can be fined for up to 2 years in prison for the first case, when you obstruct first aid workers and take pictures of dead people: https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/gaffer/ https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/gaffer/ )
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    “Sentenced to” or “confined”
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  > Why is it that so many people on HN seem totally unable to fathom the concept of "intent"? Anytime there is a "why is HN like [x]" you need to stop and remember that this is a newsfeed on a tech startup incubator, and that it caters to people with certain points of view, education, and experiences. think about that, what those are, and then revisit your question; it's not rocket science.

mpalmer 3y ago

If the only distinction you see between this and NYT content is medium and production style, I'm more curious to know how you personally define important journalism.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mgraczyk 3y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-drug.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-... There are some important differences related to consent and background info, but the high level criticism in TFA that "people are profiting by sharing imagery of fucked up drug users" is equally true of mainstream publications It's important journalism to the extent that it disseminates information or raises awareness of important conditions or facts
- mpalmer 3y ago
  It's a messy gray area to be sure. Both parties want more reach and more revenue, so let's set those incentives aside. To me it seems that the worst accusation you can level at a news org like NYT is reaching for sensationalism and lurid "entertainment" to get clicks. But they are a (subjectively) trusted/credible news institution. There is an underlying mission and set of shared journalistic values behind what they do, not to mention an editorial process. Through these things there is at least a nod towards accountability. TikTok creators are not credible or trusted in the same sense, and they are under no obligation to a larger mission or set of norms, self-imposed or otherwise. They just want followers. With content like this, it seems they're doing the inverse of the NYT - they're reaching for credibility by creating content with the appearance of journalism. --- And to your point about consent, I'm sure there are people who did not or could not consent to their image being published. AFAIK there are no structures governing TikTok "journalism" that would prevent this sort of harm. For me, this is enough to totally disqualify this sort of thing as journalism.
  - mgraczyk 3y ago
    Yes I basically agree with all that.
  - ycdxvjp 3y ago
    The UN report on the Attention Economy quotes a study that says 0.5% of content produced is consumed by anyone and dropping. Platforms don't advertise it and have created a totally absurd industry where the limits of Consumption has no impact on the limits of Production. So there is no journalism going on. Content explodes and finite Attention fragments into smaller and smaller bits so Content Producers view counts stay up with ever diluting short lived impact. Consumption is not being measured right. If the you get a single viewer who then goes and reads 50 other things you are really getting 1/50th of that view. Self serving content producers and platforms don't talk about it at all. It's like watching home builders debating what they are building before the subprime meltdown.
    - mpalmer 3y ago
      You're not reading (the first sentence of) the report correctly. > By the 2000s, so much information was being generated worldwide that only a small fraction (0.5% in 2015) of the digital data generated was being analyzed at all. Information and its analysis is not equivalent to content and its consumption, nor can you extrapolate one from the other. That you seem to use this as the sole basis for your conspiratorial findings that we're in a content bubble and "platforms don't advertise it" is unfortunate.
      - qp11 3y ago
        I think you are greatly over estimating how much impact analysis is having here. Not to mention skipping over the dilution and fragmentation of Attention (even of experts). Journalism value lies more in surfacing data/info rather than analyzing it - an MRI tech might be able to observe and detect cancer before everyone else, but that doesn't mean they are qualified docs or cancer researchers. Or whatever they think needs to be highlighted really needs everyones attention. The platforms regularly waste everyone's time and energy. Journos are in a similar position to the MRI tech and do call in experts to look at their data, but it all gets regularly drowned out by the info tsunami, plus experts usually need Time the more complex anything gets. The platforms profit from the expectation that what they promote, translates to action or solution instantly. And when it doesn't they don't indicate how much energy has been wasted. The info flows have to change for more action and less unnecessary attention capture. The MRI techs are getting too much attention without an equivalent increase in lives saved.

neilk 3y ago

You mean this one? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/health/opioids-drug-consumption-sites.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/health/opioids-drug-consu... The focus seems entirely different. It’s not about shock value. In any case, turning aside from the NYTimes specifically, of course aesthetics and context matters! That’s what photojournalism is! The camera only ever captures fragments of reality, and then the publisher will place that content in a completely different context (you scrolling through your phone). Headlines, editing, narration, captions, preview images, and simply where and how you find it - that all puts the raw data into a story, a media experience. The same raw video file can be edited to to inflame disgust or inspire empathy.

mgraczyk 3y ago
No, more like this one, where the main focus is on how fucked up a small number of specific people are https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-drug.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-...
- neilk 3y ago
  I honestly don’t know what to tell you if you think these pieces are similar to random TikToks that are constructed to inspire horror and disgust. Andrew Callaghan does some interesting work that focuses on lurid topics but with unexpected sensitivity. In his recent piece on San Francisco street crime and drug addiction, there’s a subplot about a TikToker who is popular with conservative media for condemning and confronting street people. He is loathed by the social services and healthcare workers. https://youtu.be/URfCwT3UQy4 https://youtu.be/URfCwT3UQy4
  - mgraczyk 3y ago
    The first text in the NYT article on my phone is "Brooke Peder’s leg was amputated after an infection from a tranq wound bore into the bone. She hopes to save her arm, although she reluctantly injects tranq in it." They are both relying on shock and disgust to make money. I agree that NYT is far more fact based and substantive, but the core problem people seem to have with the TikTokers is almost just as bad in traditional journalism. Also yes I love Andrew Callahan, and the first scene of that video was shot 3 blocks from my office.

viraptor 3y ago

You're really looking at this at a surface level. Instead of production style consider: consent (was that person in a good state to make decisions), main topic (this is addiction in general -vs- look at this addicted person), amount of context (did you learn about anything beyond "this person is addicted"). Production style has next to nothing to do with whether it's journalism.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fuzzybear3965 3y ago
> consent This is not, and should not be, an important factor in journalistic reporting. Often, the most valuable stories are those which would never receive consent by the relevant parties. > Addiction in general vs. the individual I don't understand. We should treat the problem as a statistical one without a personal human element? Absolutely not. Plenty of reports abound on statistics, already. A garish front-line perspective could be exactly what saves some kid from walking down that path in the future and what motivates some community activists or politicians to effect meaningful changes in their community.
- viraptor 3y ago
  Consent of the victim. I don't care if someone doesn't consent to getting their crimes exposed. But if you started filming body damage the drug did to random people without asking them for consent, that would be a really shitty thing, even if informative in some way. > We should treat the problem as a statistical one without a personal human element? No, we shouldn't concentrate on specific people. This shouldn't be poverty porn. "There's an issue, here's an affected person who agreed to talk to us about it, here's more about the issue" - great personal element! "Look at this affected person, and this one, and this one, and this one, the end" - no, that's not reporting about the issue itself.
  - next_xibalba 3y ago
    Doing drugs in public is a crime in most places. So the victims are, in fact, all of us (including the TikTokers doing the filming).

noqc 3y ago

>would it also be bad for NYT to film the same things and publish a piece about how bad the situation is, with ads? Yes. Advertising, in which you pay someone to lie or exploit a fallacy (e.g. red wine associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease), is the opposite of journalism. The idea that you should fund one with the other is frankly horrific.

bsder 3y ago

Why is it that so many people on HN seem totally unable to fathom the concept of "intent"? If a TikTokker is trying to document this to get people help or change the situation, that's ... I don't want to say "good" but probably "acceptable". If a TikTokker is simply filming "spectacle" of people who probably cannot give reasonable consent, that is very much unacceptable. These are both true whether you replace "TikTok" with "Insta" or "NYTimes" or "WaPo".

carstenhag 3y ago
Agree, laws also differ between you stopping when there's an accident to take photos (in Germany called "Gaffer" or "persistent looker") and a journalist taking pictures to inform about this event. (Apparently there's been a new law, you can be fined for up to 2 years in prison for the first case, when you obstruct first aid workers and take pictures of dead people: https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/gaffer/ https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/gaffer/ )
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  “Sentenced to” or “confined”
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
red-iron-pine 3y ago
> Why is it that so many people on HN seem totally unable to fathom the concept of "intent"? Anytime there is a "why is HN like [x]" you need to stop and remember that this is a newsfeed on a tech startup incubator, and that it caters to people with certain points of view, education, and experiences. think about that, what those are, and then revisit your question; it's not rocket science.