4 ms·

So newspapers are not permitted to perform original research?

busterarm 14y ago
That's not really the job of newspapers. Newspapers are supposed to accurately and impartially report the news. Op-Ed work needs to be clearly marked as such. Now, it would be fair to say that the Automotive section, specifically the reviews, contains a fair bit more opinion than the rest of the paper, but there needs to be clear distinction. Going by the headline and the way the article was written, this clearly isn't the case. It was reported as news...as in it was about the car and neglected the fine personal detail that a review would have. It turns out though that the story here is more about Broder and how he drove the car. The way he drove it was more important than anything he reported about the car - it's not news. Broder writes other stories for the NYT that are genuine news. It's shocking to me that the current editorial format of the NYT allows crap like that to be published in the same venue. I'm basically saying that if this weren't written by an NYT staff reporter, it would have been an Op-Ed (or similarly labeled) if they allowed it for publication at all. They should not have.
- crazygringo 14y ago
  > That's not really the job of newspapers. Newspapers are supposed to accurately and impartially report the news. I think you just made that up. According to who? I read newspapers with movie reviews, play reviews, comics pages, advertising, news analysis, car reviews, industry analysis, foreign affairs analysis, etc etc etc. Newspaper reporters win Pulitzers for their original research, investigation and analysis. God forbid if newspapers should ever merely "report the news", it would be a sad day.
  - busterarm 14y ago
    Reviews are always presented as reviews though. There's a personal element in most of those. Analysis usually is either a summation of another publication (with citations) or is an Op-Ed. Investigative journalism is pure news.

That's not really the job of newspapers. Newspapers are supposed to accurately and impartially report the news. Op-Ed work needs to be clearly marked as such. Now, it would be fair to say that the Automotive section, specifically the reviews, contains a fair bit more opinion than the rest of the paper, but there needs to be clear distinction. Going by the headline and the way the article was written, this clearly isn't the case. It was reported as news...as in it was about the car and neglected the fine personal detail that a review would have. It turns out though that the story here is more about Broder and how he drove the car. The way he drove it was more important than anything he reported about the car - it's not news. Broder writes other stories for the NYT that are genuine news. It's shocking to me that the current editorial format of the NYT allows crap like that to be published in the same venue. I'm basically saying that if this weren't written by an NYT staff reporter, it would have been an Op-Ed (or similarly labeled) if they allowed it for publication at all. They should not have.

crazygringo 14y ago
> That's not really the job of newspapers. Newspapers are supposed to accurately and impartially report the news. I think you just made that up. According to who? I read newspapers with movie reviews, play reviews, comics pages, advertising, news analysis, car reviews, industry analysis, foreign affairs analysis, etc etc etc. Newspaper reporters win Pulitzers for their original research, investigation and analysis. God forbid if newspapers should ever merely "report the news", it would be a sad day.
- busterarm 14y ago
  Reviews are always presented as reviews though. There's a personal element in most of those. Analysis usually is either a summation of another publication (with citations) or is an Op-Ed. Investigative journalism is pure news.