4 ms·

Endorsements are published by the editorial section which is specifically separated from the rest of the newspaper so to not undermine the neutrality of the jou

by zmmmmm 2y ago

Endorsements are published by the editorial section which is specifically separated from the rest of the newspaper so to not undermine the neutrality of the journalism in the other sections. Opinion and analysis has always been part of news publications, and plays an accepted role in adding layers of interpretation onto the raw "facts" that is crucial in making those facts interpretable by readers who aren't expert in the subject matter.

ekianjo 2y ago
> to not undermine the neutrality of the journalism in the other sections. There is no neutral publication. Of there is an editorial board there is by definition no neutrality.
colordrops 2y ago
> crucial in making those facts interpretable by readers who aren't expert in the subject matter. That's pretty charitable. In my experience most opinion and "analysis" is typically heavily biased and in service of some agenda.
wordofx 2y ago
[flagged]
- chairmansteve 2y ago
  [flagged]
- zmmmmm 2y ago
  > If trump said 1+1=2 He says things like "I wish I had general's like Hitler's" or his political opponents are the "enemy within" and he would harness the military against them if he gets in power, and that migrants are criminals. I really don't know how you can equate something as uncontroversial as "1+1=2" with such controversial and divisive statements.
- strunz 2y ago
  He lies about absolutely everything, so everything he says should be met with skepticism.
- fma 2y ago
  [flagged]
- rat87 2y ago
  It is a neutral statement that Trump is objectively terrible. By contrast it is propaganda to defend him when he claims 2+2=5, which he does on a regularly basis. And this doesn't have anything to do with "the left" a ton of conservative Republicans have admitted that Trump is objectively terrible. https://www.wpr.org/news/conservative-commentator-charlie-sykes-2-former-gop-state-officials-endorse-harris https://www.wpr.org/news/conservative-commentator-charlie-sy...
Cyph0n 2y ago
Layers of interpretation = surfacing the bias of the editorial team so you can look for it in the non-oped sections of the paper
- zmmmmm 2y ago
  You can take that way if you want. But you aren't doing it justice if you just view it as purely cynical deliberate manipulation rather than a true effort at enhancing the reader's understanding. Essentially they offer a framework of reasoning around the facts presented that the reader can use to make their own evaluation. Like if someone reports that 122,211 electric vehicles were sold last year. Is that a lot? Is that not a lot? You would need to start comparing to previous years, what external factors might be influencing sales. There is intrinsically no way to do that without introducing selective bias about what is considered or not. But the reader at least gets that context to enhance their own understanding.
bee_rider 2y ago
It seems like the newspaper editorial section really ought to endorse somebody to make their biases clear, if nothing else. What are we to believe, that a bunch of people whose job it is to write opinion pieces don’t have an opinion about the election in their own country? Haha, yeah, sureeee…
smsm42 2y ago
The idea that editorial team has some kind of expertise, unavailable to general population, that allows them ecxlusive ability to properly understand current events, seems to have no factual support at all. They are professionals in giving their opinions, it doesn't make their opinions be better that anybody else's. Experience suggests they are usually worse.
- zmmmmm 2y ago
  > The idea that editorial team has some kind of expertise, unavailable to general population That doesn't make sense to me - they literally spend all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. They are trained formally at assessing, evaluating and questioning facts. You can criticise the end result, but I can't see how it's reasonable to say they aren't far better positioned to have an informed opinion than the average reader who gets up in the morning with no training and tries to understand a slew of facts dumped on them without context.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. Something the people they are writing to and ostensibly on behalf of do not get to enjoy. Perhaps people with grounded perspectives would be more worthwhile. Guest opinions are logical, an actual editorial opinion department? That's just an early retirement plan for writers who don't have what it takes to produce news anymore.
  - smsm42 2y ago
    > they literally spend all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. I have no idea what "absorbing" means and how it's different from any random dude spending his day sitting on a couch glued to CNN/MSNBC screen. But the fact that they are professional writers doesn't give them any special quality in the insightfulness of their writings - you can be a professional writer and a complete doofus, to which we have an ample number of examples. > They are trained formally at assessing, evaluating and questioning facts. No they are not. Maybe they used to, somewhere in ancient times, but there's no slightest trace of any of it in most of the content produced by major press outlets. If they can do it - which I very much doubt - they certainly aren't bothering to. > You can criticise the end result By their fruits you will know them. The end result is the only criteria worth considering. > I can't see how it's reasonable to say they aren't far better positioned to have an informed opinion Some of them - with access to sources unavailable to regular people - may be better position to form an informed opinion, if they wanted to. But as soon as that information has been published, they do not have that better position anymore. And in addition to that, what is frequently happening is that they do not just publish the information available to them - instead they distort it and modify it to fit their pre-conceived opinion, and publish that, in hope that the public doesn't know any better (it usually does). If there is any truth to separation of news and opinion sections that we were told so much about it, then by that mere fact the opinion writers don't have any special informational insights - only the news people, working with confidential sources, might. > the average reader who gets up in the morning with no training What is that mythical "training"? I see no evidence of any relevant "training" in anything I read in the press. Most of them know how to handle basic grammar and write somewhat coherent text, but any person with basic education can. Beyond that, I don't see any special "training" there. And certainly there is an ample number of people who undergo much more rigorous training about how to handle facts, e.g. when studying hard sciences. Most press opinion writers do not undergo anything like that. > tries to understand a slew of facts dumped on them without context. What is that mythical "context" not available to regular people and where does it come from? Is there some secret "context sources" that are only opening if you work for WaPo? What is stored in those "context" treasuries? I think their existence is a complete fiction. There's just a bunch of people who are getting paid for publishing their opinions because they have a degree saying "journalism" on it or just because they applied to the job and got hired, but they don't have any special insight or "context". I mean, some of them might be just good at thinking and making conclusions (they usually don't survive in the press long) but that would be just random luck. Given the selection pressure, I'd expect lower chance to find such people among professional press than just in a random selection of people with the same class and education level.
ww520 2y ago
If it were the editor's opinion, how is it any different from the opinion of anybody off the street? Why do the editors get the newspaper platform to publish their opinions?
- krapp 2y ago
  >Why do the editors get the newspaper platform to publish their opinions? Because they work for the newspaper and that's part of their job?
  - generalizations 2y ago
    Then we're right back to the original question: > How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?
    - krapp 2y ago
      Opinions aren't meant to be neutral and fair, and it isn't a violation of journalistic ethics to publish them as such. If they had tried to disguise opinions as journalism by introducing intentional bias and distortion into a story, then that would be a problem. But newspapers have published opinions for ages.
    - vehicles2b 2y ago
      It's rather naive to think that newspapers ought to be neutral (or fair) in everything they produce. What kinds of neutral is desirable? There's neutral tone or neutral political bias -- there are many different ways for a newspaper to be or not be neutral. Assuming neutrality isn't something that we should expect newspapers to value, then I think transparency is an good alternative. A presidential endorsement can be a good thing in that the newspaper staff are being openly transparent about their political bias.
    - hluska 2y ago
      Writing opinion and reporting on events are different things. Opinions are usually denoted at masthead, preamble and postscript. Why do you think that readers don’t understand that?
zahlman 2y ago
>the editorial section which is specifically separated from the rest of the newspaper It hasn't felt like this to me for many years, for pretty much any outlet.
keiferski 2y ago
In practice there is little or no distinction. The list of top articles always includes opinion pieces, the choice of “neutral” fact articles to publish (and the headlines used) signals bias, and on a basic common sense level a newspaper isn’t going to publish an opinion piece that goes against the opinions of their workers/owners. Every time an opinion piece is published that goes against this, it’s a huge brouhaha. Interestingly on another note, opinion writers are often actually less qualified than you’d expect, because the business model of a newspaper doesn’t really work for accumulating expertise vs. a specialized magazine/Substack / etc. The only way to have consistent opinion pieces is to have a generalist, not a specialist.

by zmmmmm 2y ago

ekianjo 2y ago

> to not undermine the neutrality of the journalism in the other sections. There is no neutral publication. Of there is an editorial board there is by definition no neutrality.

colordrops 2y ago

> crucial in making those facts interpretable by readers who aren't expert in the subject matter. That's pretty charitable. In my experience most opinion and "analysis" is typically heavily biased and in service of some agenda.

wordofx 2y ago

[flagged]

chairmansteve 2y ago
[flagged]
zmmmmm 2y ago
> If trump said 1+1=2 He says things like "I wish I had general's like Hitler's" or his political opponents are the "enemy within" and he would harness the military against them if he gets in power, and that migrants are criminals. I really don't know how you can equate something as uncontroversial as "1+1=2" with such controversial and divisive statements.
strunz 2y ago
He lies about absolutely everything, so everything he says should be met with skepticism.
fma 2y ago
[flagged]
rat87 2y ago
It is a neutral statement that Trump is objectively terrible. By contrast it is propaganda to defend him when he claims 2+2=5, which he does on a regularly basis. And this doesn't have anything to do with "the left" a ton of conservative Republicans have admitted that Trump is objectively terrible. https://www.wpr.org/news/conservative-commentator-charlie-sykes-2-former-gop-state-officials-endorse-harris https://www.wpr.org/news/conservative-commentator-charlie-sy...

Cyph0n 2y ago

Layers of interpretation = surfacing the bias of the editorial team so you can look for it in the non-oped sections of the paper

zmmmmm 2y ago
You can take that way if you want. But you aren't doing it justice if you just view it as purely cynical deliberate manipulation rather than a true effort at enhancing the reader's understanding. Essentially they offer a framework of reasoning around the facts presented that the reader can use to make their own evaluation. Like if someone reports that 122,211 electric vehicles were sold last year. Is that a lot? Is that not a lot? You would need to start comparing to previous years, what external factors might be influencing sales. There is intrinsically no way to do that without introducing selective bias about what is considered or not. But the reader at least gets that context to enhance their own understanding.

bee_rider 2y ago

It seems like the newspaper editorial section really ought to endorse somebody to make their biases clear, if nothing else. What are we to believe, that a bunch of people whose job it is to write opinion pieces don’t have an opinion about the election in their own country? Haha, yeah, sureeee…

smsm42 2y ago

The idea that editorial team has some kind of expertise, unavailable to general population, that allows them ecxlusive ability to properly understand current events, seems to have no factual support at all. They are professionals in giving their opinions, it doesn't make their opinions be better that anybody else's. Experience suggests they are usually worse.

zmmmmm 2y ago
> The idea that editorial team has some kind of expertise, unavailable to general population That doesn't make sense to me - they literally spend all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. They are trained formally at assessing, evaluating and questioning facts. You can criticise the end result, but I can't see how it's reasonable to say they aren't far better positioned to have an informed opinion than the average reader who gets up in the morning with no training and tries to understand a slew of facts dumped on them without context.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- akira2501 2y ago
  > all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. Something the people they are writing to and ostensibly on behalf of do not get to enjoy. Perhaps people with grounded perspectives would be more worthwhile. Guest opinions are logical, an actual editorial opinion department? That's just an early retirement plan for writers who don't have what it takes to produce news anymore.
- smsm42 2y ago
  > they literally spend all day every day absorbing, summarising and writing about context as their full time job. I have no idea what "absorbing" means and how it's different from any random dude spending his day sitting on a couch glued to CNN/MSNBC screen. But the fact that they are professional writers doesn't give them any special quality in the insightfulness of their writings - you can be a professional writer and a complete doofus, to which we have an ample number of examples. > They are trained formally at assessing, evaluating and questioning facts. No they are not. Maybe they used to, somewhere in ancient times, but there's no slightest trace of any of it in most of the content produced by major press outlets. If they can do it - which I very much doubt - they certainly aren't bothering to. > You can criticise the end result By their fruits you will know them. The end result is the only criteria worth considering. > I can't see how it's reasonable to say they aren't far better positioned to have an informed opinion Some of them - with access to sources unavailable to regular people - may be better position to form an informed opinion, if they wanted to. But as soon as that information has been published, they do not have that better position anymore. And in addition to that, what is frequently happening is that they do not just publish the information available to them - instead they distort it and modify it to fit their pre-conceived opinion, and publish that, in hope that the public doesn't know any better (it usually does). If there is any truth to separation of news and opinion sections that we were told so much about it, then by that mere fact the opinion writers don't have any special informational insights - only the news people, working with confidential sources, might. > the average reader who gets up in the morning with no training What is that mythical "training"? I see no evidence of any relevant "training" in anything I read in the press. Most of them know how to handle basic grammar and write somewhat coherent text, but any person with basic education can. Beyond that, I don't see any special "training" there. And certainly there is an ample number of people who undergo much more rigorous training about how to handle facts, e.g. when studying hard sciences. Most press opinion writers do not undergo anything like that. > tries to understand a slew of facts dumped on them without context. What is that mythical "context" not available to regular people and where does it come from? Is there some secret "context sources" that are only opening if you work for WaPo? What is stored in those "context" treasuries? I think their existence is a complete fiction. There's just a bunch of people who are getting paid for publishing their opinions because they have a degree saying "journalism" on it or just because they applied to the job and got hired, but they don't have any special insight or "context". I mean, some of them might be just good at thinking and making conclusions (they usually don't survive in the press long) but that would be just random luck. Given the selection pressure, I'd expect lower chance to find such people among professional press than just in a random selection of people with the same class and education level.

ww520 2y ago

If it were the editor's opinion, how is it any different from the opinion of anybody off the street? Why do the editors get the newspaper platform to publish their opinions?

krapp 2y ago
>Why do the editors get the newspaper platform to publish their opinions? Because they work for the newspaper and that's part of their job?
- generalizations 2y ago
  Then we're right back to the original question: > How does it not undermine a paper's journalistic ethics to be neutral and fair?
  - krapp 2y ago
    Opinions aren't meant to be neutral and fair, and it isn't a violation of journalistic ethics to publish them as such. If they had tried to disguise opinions as journalism by introducing intentional bias and distortion into a story, then that would be a problem. But newspapers have published opinions for ages.
  - vehicles2b 2y ago
    It's rather naive to think that newspapers ought to be neutral (or fair) in everything they produce. What kinds of neutral is desirable? There's neutral tone or neutral political bias -- there are many different ways for a newspaper to be or not be neutral. Assuming neutrality isn't something that we should expect newspapers to value, then I think transparency is an good alternative. A presidential endorsement can be a good thing in that the newspaper staff are being openly transparent about their political bias.
  - hluska 2y ago
    Writing opinion and reporting on events are different things. Opinions are usually denoted at masthead, preamble and postscript. Why do you think that readers don’t understand that?

zahlman 2y ago

>the editorial section which is specifically separated from the rest of the newspaper It hasn't felt like this to me for many years, for pretty much any outlet.

keiferski 2y ago

In practice there is little or no distinction. The list of top articles always includes opinion pieces, the choice of “neutral” fact articles to publish (and the headlines used) signals bias, and on a basic common sense level a newspaper isn’t going to publish an opinion piece that goes against the opinions of their workers/owners. Every time an opinion piece is published that goes against this, it’s a huge brouhaha. Interestingly on another note, opinion writers are often actually less qualified than you’d expect, because the business model of a newspaper doesn’t really work for accumulating expertise vs. a specialized magazine/Substack / etc. The only way to have consistent opinion pieces is to have a generalist, not a specialist.