6 ms·

Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low w

Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low wages? Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly?

ljlolel 2y ago
They’re also incredibly non-diverse and complain about big tech being non-diverse.
- gwervc 2y ago
  Always the same story... A few years ago a big left French newspaper (Libération) always pushing for "diversity" published a photo of their staff, which was like 98- 100% white.
  - throwawaylolx 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - Larrikin 2y ago
      Which ones?
      - ekianjo 2y ago
        every employer that has quotas for non-white employees? that necessarily follows. not that its not limited to race. if an org wants more women they will actively select candidates based on gender first.
        Zigurd 2y ago
        Comparing a specific employer against "every employer that has quotas" is not a useful comparison.
        parineum 2y ago
        Discrimination is a necessary means to achieve quoatas, no matter what the quota is. Introducing discrimination is often the explicitly stated purpose of quotas
        Zigurd 2y ago
        The reason it's not a useful comparison is that unnamed, nonspecific "employer who has quotas" is assuming that many employers have quotas. Who? How much? And did they eat my cat?
        jimbokun 2y ago
        Which employers are those? In the US, they would be blatantly violating the law and targets for lawsuits.
        School-Cotton 2y ago
        > every employer that has quotas for non-white employees? Does any employer in the US have this? I'm almost certain it'd be illegal.
      - VancouverMan 2y ago
        Just over a decade ago, there was a job ad for a host role with the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that explicitly required applicants to be "Any race except Caucasian". https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/cbc-no-caucasian https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/cbc-no-caucasian While it was portrayed as a "mistake" during the subsequent backtracking, that incident certainly planted a seed of doubt in my mind.
  - ekianjo 2y ago
    thats called projection
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- donohoe 2y ago
  “Incredibly non-diverse”? No. They are in a better position than most https://www.nytco.com/2023-new-york-times-diversity-and-inclusion-report/ https://www.nytco.com/2023-new-york-times-diversity-and-incl... The my don’t complain about tech being non-diverse, they report that it is non-diverse - which is true.
  - klooney 2y ago
    60% white is much whiter than a tech company
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      Why is the color important here?
      - mensetmanusman 2y ago
        Because dei and the nyt focus on that being important.
        Rinzler89 2y ago
        [flagged]
        giantg2 2y ago
        "Feels like this deviation is always used as a distraction to divide and conquer the workers and voters on race and skin color and have them fight against each other to prevent them collectively allying against those from the top actually oppressing them and eroding their rights and wages." It does seem that way, slightly. There seem to be some natural causes for misalignment that I would think are more influential. One main issue is that different people and groups of people have different experiences. If you've never been screwed over, you might not see the problems in the current system. If you have been screwed over and seen other screwed over, you might just think that's the way it goes. What are the alternatives proposed to the unfair impacts? I want to see the objective rating criteria that can reduce or prevent people from getting screwed over. I do think tech unions can help with this a little, but I haven't seen any successful approaches to things like ratings. Even the places that set standards seem to have subjective criteria, or you work is subjectively applied. I've been screwed over and passed over multiple times. I also have a disability, no less it's one that causes inconsistencies with policies and treatment to jump out to me. I still haven't seen any solutions that will work until the members agree on what are the problems and how do we fix them. Many of my coworkers think my company is great, but those also tend to be the people that consistently get high ratings and promotions. Meanwhile, I struggle to point out all the contributions I made, align them to the standard, and otherwise do my manager's job of rating me for them only to get an average rating. It also doesn't help that I have to tell them what the corporate policies say when they try to misuse them against me (holding time off against me, holding prior period performance against me for this period, not providing accommodations that were promised, etc). Nobody else seems to have this hard of a time so why would they risk anything to speak up for people like me? I've learned to live with the disappointment by giving up any dreams of advancement and just trying to keep the job I have while fending off as much BS as I can... and perhaps complaining about it on HN.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  in terms of binary black-white thinking, NYT is definitely more diverse than tech
- grumple 2y ago
  Is big tech non-diverse? It seems to have a higher non-white population than the US itself according the numbers I've been able to find. If we count contractors and off-shore, it will become even less white. I'd bet tech has a higher proportion of LGBT+ people as well (without looking at numbers, admittedly, but I'd be surprised if I was wrong). Gender diversity is an issue; but not for lack of trying. Cis women are probably 5% of the resumes I see.
  - BurningFrog 2y ago
    In my SV teams over the years, I'd say that the straight white male US born people were ~20% of the engineers.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
HPsquared 2y ago
Projection is a thing (assuming the opinions they print are their own)
ETH_start 2y ago
The NY Times is pro-union and anti-big-tech in large part because its journalists are unionized and tech platforms disintermediate unions. The workers that produce articles and create the newsroom culture have a conflict of interest that affects its editorial slant. There is also the factor that tech threatens the ad revenue of traditional news media.
- donohoe 2y ago
  I worked at NYT for seven years and I can say from direct personal experience that your many points are not true.
  - reissbaker 2y ago
    Kelsey Piper, a journalist at Vox, leaked two years ago that the NYT has had a years-long top-down directive to only write negative stories about tech [1]. Plenty of journalists have confirmed this since. Since you worked at the NYT for seven years, want to explain that particular policy in light of your rebuttal that the NYT had no conflict of interest and wasn't trying to smear tech companies? 1: https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192 https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192
    - donohoe 2y ago
      You are making a very different claim here. The parent comment says: >> The NY Times is pro-union and anti-big-tech [...] That is the claim. These are the reasons it sues, and my notes on each: * journalists are unionized and tech platforms disintermediate unions Thats a broad generalization based on the authors opinion and not necessarily true. The attitude was not reflective of my interactions with journalists either. I would dispute this from personal experience. We can agree/disagree forever, I'm just giving my IRL experience. * workers that produce articles and create the newsroom culture have a conflict of interest It could be said that any journalist who covers any subject has a conflict of interest by covering that subject. Thats a bit weak. * tech threatens the ad revenue of traditional news media. Yeah. Rising costs of paper also threaten traditional news media. The NYT is profitable and not reliant on ad revenue streams for survival. They have a health revenue stream in number of other areas. In addition, for better or for worse, most journalists don't actually know/care that much about ad revenue given the tradition divides between business and editorial sides (I see that at many media orgs I have worked for - its not just the NYT) So.. that was what I was talking about ("workers", not a "top-down directive"). In regards to your point: Thats a new and different claim so hard for me to speak to that. I would note that the claim came from Matthew Yglesias. He since deleted the tweet. I would note that he never worked at the NYT as far as I can tell. I don't know much of Kelsey Piper, but she "heard it from NYT reporters at the time" so not quite first-hand account either. Her tweet is not a "leak" (thats very different) and I see nothing to prove or substantiate it - just she "heard" it. I'll keep an open mind but I'm skeptical.
Retric 2y ago
> Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly? Being anti tech has nothing to do with salary, it’s centered on what big tech is doing. The people actually writing articles tend to be in Unions which may help explain their pro Union stances. Both from below and management being concerned with union relations.
gsky 2y ago
Easier said than done, right. Who would dare to criticize them afterall
ParetoOptimal 2y ago
Yeah, therefore big tech should get to treat their workers however.
cantSpellSober 2y ago
> Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly? The journalists (and tech workers) don't decide their own salary. You conflated "they" as both management and the people being managed, to make it "ironic."
- lupusreal 2y ago
  I wonder if the NYTimes journalists will sympathy strike. (They won't.)
- matrix87 2y ago
  Are you saying that management doesn't have input on editorial direction? sounds pretty hard to believe
- ramon156 2y ago
  Uh hello, journalists also don't choose the theme they write in. That's also management
  - cantSpellSober 2y ago
    You're thinking of editors, and journalists do choose what they cover to an extent. Management ostensibly sees that everything goes according to plan/schedule. Fair point though–if mgmt is pushing some initiative, that pressure is felt in a newsroom.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nemo44x 2y ago
A lot of the East Coast media, like the Times, has a lot of downwardly mobile people in them from wealthy or upper middle class families. And they aren't any longer in many cases and they are full of resent and bitterness that their turn has been looked over. That they aren't getting what "they deserve" as they did "everything right" like join a bunch of clubs in high school or w/e and go to college and get a degree that shows the world they are the continuation of their family legacy. But it's not there any longer and there's jealousy of of the new middle class that tech has built.
eli_gottlieb 2y ago
When the bloody hell has the New York Times been pro-union?
kettlepot1337 2y ago
>> Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low wages? It is more than a little ironic that the NY Times complains about a "lack of diversity" in silicon valley, when practically the entire NY Times senior staff are generationally rich white people who live in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Here is the exec staff: https://www.nytco.com/company/people/ https://www.nytco.com/company/people/ "Filter by executive" There are >64 million Hispanics living in the United States, yet not a single one on the NYT exec team. They have 1 token asian, 1 token black person. Half the staff is Jewish. Yet they are complaining about diversity in Silicon valley. As a person of asian origin, there is probably no way I can get a non-crappy role at the NY Times, yet silicon valley offers enough of a meritocracy that I can get a job there without having a rich uncle. Remember, when the establishment complains about diversity, they are actually complaining about themselves losing control to the general population. That is why colored people in executive roles in SV is so scary to newspapers.
- tiznow 2y ago
  It's funny, my experience with NYT and tech has been the opposite as a minority -- probably a lot easier to get in than many would think, but talent is not the fulcrum. "Half the staff is Jewish" made me laugh though, perhaps closer to true than false. It's funny how people call The New Yorker the pinnacle of privilege as a writer-type, and their staff writer team is more diverse than just about any other East Coast bigwig outlet.
vrosas 2y ago
Their current CEO, Meredith Kopit Levien, is about as let-them-eat-cake as they come. She was doing a town hall years back when they were forcing everyone to “hotel” desks so they could lease out more floors of their HQ in Times Square, when she mentioned she’s giving up one of her two offices in the building but it’s ok because one was “mostly for shoes, anyway”.
salawat 2y ago
...Just because you're being payed absurdly doesn't legitimize your work any either. There's a lot of work that's aimed at getting done where the big fat paycheck is considered "STFU and do what you're told. with what we're paying you, we own you." Just because you're potentially paid 500k to essentially implement the basis of metadata leakage and privacy compromise on scales that previous century actual dictators couldn't even reasonably dream of does not make the work of implementing it more "legitimate". It just makes it easier to attract people who value naterial comforts right now over safety from systemic abuse later. It's all tradeoffs. Someone'll pay you well to do ultimately horrible things, and make it sound like you're doing everyone a favor. Juniors, take note. You set the bar on the hell you'll be trapped in down the road. Always, always, be suspect.
whimsicalism 2y ago
it’s not ironic at all, usually ostensibly left organizations are most vulnerable to union pressure because of their customer base. almost all modern places that unionize have a liberal/left-leaning customer base the company is afraid of losing
tiznow 2y ago
This is a journalism industry problem, not a journalism content problem. Journalists trying to get paid more doesn't exclude Big Tech from criticism it deserves

ljlolel 2y ago

They’re also incredibly non-diverse and complain about big tech being non-diverse.

gwervc 2y ago
Always the same story... A few years ago a big left French newspaper (Libération) always pushing for "diversity" published a photo of their staff, which was like 98- 100% white.
- throwawaylolx 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    Which ones?
    - ekianjo 2y ago
      every employer that has quotas for non-white employees? that necessarily follows. not that its not limited to race. if an org wants more women they will actively select candidates based on gender first.
      - Zigurd 2y ago
        Comparing a specific employer against "every employer that has quotas" is not a useful comparison.
        parineum 2y ago
        Discrimination is a necessary means to achieve quoatas, no matter what the quota is. Introducing discrimination is often the explicitly stated purpose of quotas
        Zigurd 2y ago
        The reason it's not a useful comparison is that unnamed, nonspecific "employer who has quotas" is assuming that many employers have quotas. Who? How much? And did they eat my cat?
      - jimbokun 2y ago
        Which employers are those? In the US, they would be blatantly violating the law and targets for lawsuits.
      - School-Cotton 2y ago
        > every employer that has quotas for non-white employees? Does any employer in the US have this? I'm almost certain it'd be illegal.
    - VancouverMan 2y ago
      Just over a decade ago, there was a job ad for a host role with the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that explicitly required applicants to be "Any race except Caucasian". https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/cbc-no-caucasian https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/cbc-no-caucasian While it was portrayed as a "mistake" during the subsequent backtracking, that incident certainly planted a seed of doubt in my mind.
- ekianjo 2y ago
  thats called projection
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
donohoe 2y ago
“Incredibly non-diverse”? No. They are in a better position than most https://www.nytco.com/2023-new-york-times-diversity-and-inclusion-report/ https://www.nytco.com/2023-new-york-times-diversity-and-incl... The my don’t complain about tech being non-diverse, they report that it is non-diverse - which is true.
- klooney 2y ago
  60% white is much whiter than a tech company
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    Why is the color important here?
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Because dei and the nyt focus on that being important.
      - Rinzler89 2y ago
        [flagged]
        giantg2 2y ago
        "Feels like this deviation is always used as a distraction to divide and conquer the workers and voters on race and skin color and have them fight against each other to prevent them collectively allying against those from the top actually oppressing them and eroding their rights and wages." It does seem that way, slightly. There seem to be some natural causes for misalignment that I would think are more influential. One main issue is that different people and groups of people have different experiences. If you've never been screwed over, you might not see the problems in the current system. If you have been screwed over and seen other screwed over, you might just think that's the way it goes. What are the alternatives proposed to the unfair impacts? I want to see the objective rating criteria that can reduce or prevent people from getting screwed over. I do think tech unions can help with this a little, but I haven't seen any successful approaches to things like ratings. Even the places that set standards seem to have subjective criteria, or you work is subjectively applied. I've been screwed over and passed over multiple times. I also have a disability, no less it's one that causes inconsistencies with policies and treatment to jump out to me. I still haven't seen any solutions that will work until the members agree on what are the problems and how do we fix them. Many of my coworkers think my company is great, but those also tend to be the people that consistently get high ratings and promotions. Meanwhile, I struggle to point out all the contributions I made, align them to the standard, and otherwise do my manager's job of rating me for them only to get an average rating. It also doesn't help that I have to tell them what the corporate policies say when they try to misuse them against me (holding time off against me, holding prior period performance against me for this period, not providing accommodations that were promised, etc). Nobody else seems to have this hard of a time so why would they risk anything to speak up for people like me? I've learned to live with the disappointment by giving up any dreams of advancement and just trying to keep the job I have while fending off as much BS as I can... and perhaps complaining about it on HN.
whimsicalism 2y ago
in terms of binary black-white thinking, NYT is definitely more diverse than tech
grumple 2y ago
Is big tech non-diverse? It seems to have a higher non-white population than the US itself according the numbers I've been able to find. If we count contractors and off-shore, it will become even less white. I'd bet tech has a higher proportion of LGBT+ people as well (without looking at numbers, admittedly, but I'd be surprised if I was wrong). Gender diversity is an issue; but not for lack of trying. Cis women are probably 5% of the resumes I see.
- BurningFrog 2y ago
  In my SV teams over the years, I'd say that the straight white male US born people were ~20% of the engineers.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

HPsquared 2y ago

Projection is a thing (assuming the opinions they print are their own)

ETH_start 2y ago

The NY Times is pro-union and anti-big-tech in large part because its journalists are unionized and tech platforms disintermediate unions. The workers that produce articles and create the newsroom culture have a conflict of interest that affects its editorial slant. There is also the factor that tech threatens the ad revenue of traditional news media.

donohoe 2y ago
I worked at NYT for seven years and I can say from direct personal experience that your many points are not true.
- reissbaker 2y ago
  Kelsey Piper, a journalist at Vox, leaked two years ago that the NYT has had a years-long top-down directive to only write negative stories about tech [1]. Plenty of journalists have confirmed this since. Since you worked at the NYT for seven years, want to explain that particular policy in light of your rebuttal that the NYT had no conflict of interest and wasn't trying to smear tech companies? 1: https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192 https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192
  - donohoe 2y ago
    You are making a very different claim here. The parent comment says: >> The NY Times is pro-union and anti-big-tech [...] That is the claim. These are the reasons it sues, and my notes on each: * journalists are unionized and tech platforms disintermediate unions Thats a broad generalization based on the authors opinion and not necessarily true. The attitude was not reflective of my interactions with journalists either. I would dispute this from personal experience. We can agree/disagree forever, I'm just giving my IRL experience. * workers that produce articles and create the newsroom culture have a conflict of interest It could be said that any journalist who covers any subject has a conflict of interest by covering that subject. Thats a bit weak. * tech threatens the ad revenue of traditional news media. Yeah. Rising costs of paper also threaten traditional news media. The NYT is profitable and not reliant on ad revenue streams for survival. They have a health revenue stream in number of other areas. In addition, for better or for worse, most journalists don't actually know/care that much about ad revenue given the tradition divides between business and editorial sides (I see that at many media orgs I have worked for - its not just the NYT) So.. that was what I was talking about ("workers", not a "top-down directive"). In regards to your point: Thats a new and different claim so hard for me to speak to that. I would note that the claim came from Matthew Yglesias. He since deleted the tweet. I would note that he never worked at the NYT as far as I can tell. I don't know much of Kelsey Piper, but she "heard it from NYT reporters at the time" so not quite first-hand account either. Her tweet is not a "leak" (thats very different) and I see nothing to prove or substantiate it - just she "heard" it. I'll keep an open mind but I'm skeptical.

Retric 2y ago

> Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly? Being anti tech has nothing to do with salary, it’s centered on what big tech is doing. The people actually writing articles tend to be in Unions which may help explain their pro Union stances. Both from below and management being concerned with union relations.

gsky 2y ago

Easier said than done, right. Who would dare to criticize them afterall

ParetoOptimal 2y ago

Yeah, therefore big tech should get to treat their workers however.

cantSpellSober 2y ago

> Who are they to judge how big tech treats their employees when they pay their own so poorly? The journalists (and tech workers) don't decide their own salary. You conflated "they" as both management and the people being managed, to make it "ironic."

lupusreal 2y ago
I wonder if the NYTimes journalists will sympathy strike. (They won't.)
matrix87 2y ago
Are you saying that management doesn't have input on editorial direction? sounds pretty hard to believe
ramon156 2y ago
Uh hello, journalists also don't choose the theme they write in. That's also management
- cantSpellSober 2y ago
  You're thinking of editors, and journalists do choose what they cover to an extent. Management ostensibly sees that everything goes according to plan/schedule. Fair point though–if mgmt is pushing some initiative, that pressure is felt in a newsroom.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nemo44x 2y ago

A lot of the East Coast media, like the Times, has a lot of downwardly mobile people in them from wealthy or upper middle class families. And they aren't any longer in many cases and they are full of resent and bitterness that their turn has been looked over. That they aren't getting what "they deserve" as they did "everything right" like join a bunch of clubs in high school or w/e and go to college and get a degree that shows the world they are the continuation of their family legacy. But it's not there any longer and there's jealousy of of the new middle class that tech has built.

eli_gottlieb 2y ago

When the bloody hell has the New York Times been pro-union?

kettlepot1337 2y ago

>> Isn’t it a little ironic that NY Times, and most east coast media, is very anti big tech and pro union while their own employees are protesting because of low wages? It is more than a little ironic that the NY Times complains about a "lack of diversity" in silicon valley, when practically the entire NY Times senior staff are generationally rich white people who live in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Here is the exec staff: https://www.nytco.com/company/people/ https://www.nytco.com/company/people/ "Filter by executive" There are >64 million Hispanics living in the United States, yet not a single one on the NYT exec team. They have 1 token asian, 1 token black person. Half the staff is Jewish. Yet they are complaining about diversity in Silicon valley. As a person of asian origin, there is probably no way I can get a non-crappy role at the NY Times, yet silicon valley offers enough of a meritocracy that I can get a job there without having a rich uncle. Remember, when the establishment complains about diversity, they are actually complaining about themselves losing control to the general population. That is why colored people in executive roles in SV is so scary to newspapers.

tiznow 2y ago
It's funny, my experience with NYT and tech has been the opposite as a minority -- probably a lot easier to get in than many would think, but talent is not the fulcrum. "Half the staff is Jewish" made me laugh though, perhaps closer to true than false. It's funny how people call The New Yorker the pinnacle of privilege as a writer-type, and their staff writer team is more diverse than just about any other East Coast bigwig outlet.

vrosas 2y ago

Their current CEO, Meredith Kopit Levien, is about as let-them-eat-cake as they come. She was doing a town hall years back when they were forcing everyone to “hotel” desks so they could lease out more floors of their HQ in Times Square, when she mentioned she’s giving up one of her two offices in the building but it’s ok because one was “mostly for shoes, anyway”.

salawat 2y ago

...Just because you're being payed absurdly doesn't legitimize your work any either. There's a lot of work that's aimed at getting done where the big fat paycheck is considered "STFU and do what you're told. with what we're paying you, we own you." Just because you're potentially paid 500k to essentially implement the basis of metadata leakage and privacy compromise on scales that previous century actual dictators couldn't even reasonably dream of does not make the work of implementing it more "legitimate". It just makes it easier to attract people who value naterial comforts right now over safety from systemic abuse later. It's all tradeoffs. Someone'll pay you well to do ultimately horrible things, and make it sound like you're doing everyone a favor. Juniors, take note. You set the bar on the hell you'll be trapped in down the road. Always, always, be suspect.

whimsicalism 2y ago

it’s not ironic at all, usually ostensibly left organizations are most vulnerable to union pressure because of their customer base. almost all modern places that unionize have a liberal/left-leaning customer base the company is afraid of losing

tiznow 2y ago

This is a journalism industry problem, not a journalism content problem. Journalists trying to get paid more doesn't exclude Big Tech from criticism it deserves