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> If only everyone argued reasonable points. But they don't. So how should others respond? The Media is not everyone. The Fourth Estate has a responsibility t

> If only everyone argued reasonable points. But they don't. So how should others respond? The Media is not everyone. The Fourth Estate has a responsibility to do its job. That is, to ask questions and inform the public. If it's going to parrot press releases, then that should be listed as full disclosure somewhere in the article.

eesmith 2y ago
What are you going to do, write a letter to the editor and threaten to stop buying their news? Create your own news site? Research and publish the full context in HN comments? Make a context-free complaint on HN? Stop reading HN? Something else? "The Fourth Estate has a responsibility to do its job." is astoundingly naive. Their job is to sell subscriptions. Their job is to get paid a wage. Their job is to make their boss, and corporate owners, happy. Their job is to fill a never-ending blank page with words which rot away in hours while in a disparate fight for attention.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  What am I going to do? I just did it. I called out was Godzilla-size hole in "the facts". I called out what *was not* said. But I'm the bad guy? And the "journalist" get a free pass? Come on now. Stop it. The point is, you're taking issue with me, as if I'm the problem, and the journalist and the publisher have no stay in their own matters? Does that sound reasonable to you?
  - eesmith 2y ago
    You made a context-free answer which required the article author to know what your expectations were. If you were a reader who was worried that the claims about predicted job loss in the fast food industry were right, then the report would be exactly what you wanted to read. News articles do not fill in all the details for every article. For one, regular subscribers would get annoyed to re-read the full details for every article. The demise of paid journalism means few journalists have domain knowledge. This is horrible, and is why I pay for real news, from a news agency I trust. While here you are debating over a free news report from a news source you likely don't subscribe to, in a debate topic you likely haven't been following.
    - chiefalchemist 2y ago
      If they don't know basic math; if they don't know basic statistics; if thry're simply going to parrot a narrative... You are not a journalist. You are not doing journalism. Full stop. We need to stop giving barking pets credit for being cats. They're not cats.
      - eesmith 2y ago
        Then write a letter to the editor of Salon to complain about their 'tabloid sensibility', drop your subscription, and pay for real journalism. You wouldn't be the first. There's a reason I stopped paying for Salon some 20 years back and started paying for Democracy Now. If you only going to complain about it on HN then nothing's going to change. Propose something concrete - something more than I'm already doing. If you expect free high-quality news from every commercial news source then it's no wonder you are so annoyed when you end up with crap.
        chiefalchemist 2y ago
        I'm not complaining. I simply pointed out a clear and obvious flaw in the reporting of the original article. If I'm guilty of anything, it's stating the obvious. Unfortunately, even the mighty HN is subject to group think and even the obvious needs to be surfaced. Put another way, it's a shite article and shouldn't have been shared in the first place.
        eesmith 2y ago
        Wow! I represent the HN groupthink? I am all-powerful! I didn't realize there were that many Democracy Now supporters around here. And I simply pointed out that your analysis was incomplete, by giving one example - countering false doom&gloom propaganda - where it seems appropriate.

eesmith 2y ago

What are you going to do, write a letter to the editor and threaten to stop buying their news? Create your own news site? Research and publish the full context in HN comments? Make a context-free complaint on HN? Stop reading HN? Something else? "The Fourth Estate has a responsibility to do its job." is astoundingly naive. Their job is to sell subscriptions. Their job is to get paid a wage. Their job is to make their boss, and corporate owners, happy. Their job is to fill a never-ending blank page with words which rot away in hours while in a disparate fight for attention.

chiefalchemist 2y ago
What am I going to do? I just did it. I called out was Godzilla-size hole in "the facts". I called out what *was not* said. But I'm the bad guy? And the "journalist" get a free pass? Come on now. Stop it. The point is, you're taking issue with me, as if I'm the problem, and the journalist and the publisher have no stay in their own matters? Does that sound reasonable to you?
- eesmith 2y ago
  You made a context-free answer which required the article author to know what your expectations were. If you were a reader who was worried that the claims about predicted job loss in the fast food industry were right, then the report would be exactly what you wanted to read. News articles do not fill in all the details for every article. For one, regular subscribers would get annoyed to re-read the full details for every article. The demise of paid journalism means few journalists have domain knowledge. This is horrible, and is why I pay for real news, from a news agency I trust. While here you are debating over a free news report from a news source you likely don't subscribe to, in a debate topic you likely haven't been following.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    If they don't know basic math; if they don't know basic statistics; if thry're simply going to parrot a narrative... You are not a journalist. You are not doing journalism. Full stop. We need to stop giving barking pets credit for being cats. They're not cats.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      Then write a letter to the editor of Salon to complain about their 'tabloid sensibility', drop your subscription, and pay for real journalism. You wouldn't be the first. There's a reason I stopped paying for Salon some 20 years back and started paying for Democracy Now. If you only going to complain about it on HN then nothing's going to change. Propose something concrete - something more than I'm already doing. If you expect free high-quality news from every commercial news source then it's no wonder you are so annoyed when you end up with crap.
      - chiefalchemist 2y ago
        I'm not complaining. I simply pointed out a clear and obvious flaw in the reporting of the original article. If I'm guilty of anything, it's stating the obvious. Unfortunately, even the mighty HN is subject to group think and even the obvious needs to be surfaced. Put another way, it's a shite article and shouldn't have been shared in the first place.
        eesmith 2y ago
        Wow! I represent the HN groupthink? I am all-powerful! I didn't realize there were that many Democracy Now supporters around here. And I simply pointed out that your analysis was incomplete, by giving one example - countering false doom&gloom propaganda - where it seems appropriate.