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The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

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Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#41

Post by coredog64 »

specialist wrote: post #27
humanrebar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd feel more able to agree with you if the NYT didn't carry water for some whoppers ("you can keep you doctor", "insurers will compete for your business", etc.) back when the ACA was passed in the first place.

Insurer's response to ACA reminds me of a Frank & Ernest comic, which I can't find right now, sorry: Two USPS workers. Package label says "Do not bend, fold, mutilate." One says to the other "Doesn't say anything about crumple!" Har har har. --- I had high hopes for ACA. I believed the 15% medical loss ratio was the poison pill that would eventually drive insurers out of business, and therefore lead to Medicare for A…

HHS doesn't actually pay medical costs with that 95%. They take a 5% cut for their own overhead and then turn around and pay a group of private insurance companies to provide coverage with the rest.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#42

Post by jessaustin »

specialist wrote: post #32
humanrebar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My only notion for healthcare is to change the incentives. That's only a recipe for lobbying over what bureaucrats designate "wellness" and "disease". The best way to fix healthcare is to cut out more middlemen. The person whose health is being cared for (or their loved ones) needs to decide when another $10k scan or $65k pill regimen is worth it compared to using the cash to pay off their (grand)kids' student loan…

Wellness is easily measured. Life expectancy, sick days, patient surveys. The fight happens during rationing (bureaucratic triage). So you'd eliminate pharmacy benefit management companies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacy_benefit_management#Li... Or are you saying eliminate insurers (insurance) altogether?

This may not be what you mean, but this comment triggered a thought. If it were possible to really measure wellness and reward or punish providers accordingly, the new "health insurance" would be a sort of reinsurance that such providers purchased to control risks related to their patients' health. No, it wouldn't be cheap, and yes, the costs would be passed on to someone.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#43

Post by humanrebar »

selllikesybok wrote: post #33
humanrebar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My only notion for healthcare is to change the incentives. That's only a recipe for lobbying over what bureaucrats designate "wellness" and "disease". The best way to fix healthcare is to cut out more middlemen. The person whose health is being cared for (or their loved ones) needs to decide when another $10k scan or $65k pill regimen is worth it compared to using the cash to pay off their (grand)kids' student loan…

Who has 65k cash to toss around like that? :) If the doctor can't effectively predict what benefit said scan or pill regimen will provide (50% chance of 10 year life extension,90% chance of 2 years...? not even getting into quality of life), how does the consumer make informed choices? This approach devolves to if you have money you get care, if not, you don't, regardless of need or efficacy. Similar to any other mar…

> Who has 65k cash to toss around like that? :)

Most people who are paying that much for pills are retired middle class people trying to stay healthy into old age. Or alive for a few more years. But people should be able to pay for typical levels of healthcare. The fact that this isn't true is a question of economics and employment opportunities, not entirely problem with the "healthcare system" itself.

> There or some easy decisions to make in medical care (set the broken bone, stop the bleeding), but less so when it comes to areas driving price increases.

> Single payer and no-payer are attractive solutions due to ideological simplicity.

I agree with this first sentence more than the second. These decisions are never all that simple. And they are made even more complicated or perverse when you ignore that the best alternative for a bureaucrat (private or public) approving treatments is saying "no" and going home for a Scotch. The best alternative for the patient is saying "yes" and spending $300k and live another year in diapers.

If people were spending their own money, they would also think about:

- grandkids that want to go to college

- underfunded soup kitchens in their neighborhoods

- not reverse mortgaging the family home they wanted to pass down to their loved ones

- going on a "farewell" cruise

And that's just one category of health care decisions. There are more mundane ones like "Should I try the generic treatment for a week to see if it helps? Or should I put $3k into the boutique one and save the hassle?" I wouldn't know how a (even highly qualified, well meaning) bureaucrat in Atlanta would make a better decision than the person getting treated.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#44

Post by PhantomGremlin »

pg314 wrote: post #22
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ended up in a bubble? Yes they did. They know it. And they don't really give a fuck. After the election they did some public navel gazing about what went wrong. To prove they were serious, there was even an editorial about The Future of the Times . So I wrote to Ms Spayd. I challenged her, at the next meeting of journalists and editors, to say something like: "show of hands, who voted for Donald Trump for president".…

> So how can the Times ever begin to understand the 46% of the country who are the deplorables who voted for Trump? You don't need to be a member of a certain group to be able to report on them. E.g. you don't need to be terminally ill to report on people that are terminally ill, or member of the KKK to report on them.

you don't need to be terminally ill to report on people that are terminally ill

That's because reporters don't generally despise the terminally ill.

But if you want to honestly report about politics, then you can't think of people as deplorables. You can't automatically ascribe all sorts of negatives to 46% of the country because they didn't vote for "your" candidate.

If you despise what you're reporting on you will never, can never, report honestly. Your biases will overwhelm your coverage. You will not be able to understand what you're writing about.

And in the case of the Times, they don't even make an attempt at impartiality. They don't need to. Their target audience exists in the same bubble.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#45

Post by PhantomGremlin »

mtberatwork wrote: post #39
bitwize wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is expecting liberal journalists to turn conservative. What we need is for liberal journalists to take conservatives seriously. If the liberals really are right (and I think they're righter than the right) then they should be able to address conservative grievances within their own framework. But in recent years, they haven't been. Encouraged by Obama's success, the liberal establishment has determined that co…

> and could benefit by hiring a conservative just to function as devil's advocate They do hire conservatives (Brooks, Douthat, Kristol, etc) and they just hired Bret Stephens. > (like Fox News did with Alan Colmes) You make it sound as if Alan Colmes, during his time at Fox, was there to give an equal voice to the liberal side of an issue, but in reality he was just marginalized to be the token "lefty" punching bag f…

I don't follow the Times that closely any more, but from what I can see David Brooks is their analog to what Alan Colmes was to Fox. Somewhat like a court jester.

But even Brooks knew enough to publicly declare that he wouldn't vote for Trump, even though Trump's political views probably aligned more closely to Brooks than Hillary's views did.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#46

Post by mason240 »

specialist wrote: post #27
humanrebar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd feel more able to agree with you if the NYT didn't carry water for some whoppers ("you can keep you doctor", "insurers will compete for your business", etc.) back when the ACA was passed in the first place.

Insurer's response to ACA reminds me of a Frank & Ernest comic, which I can't find right now, sorry: Two USPS workers. Package label says "Do not bend, fold, mutilate." One says to the other "Doesn't say anything about crumple!" Har har har. --- I had high hopes for ACA. I believed the 15% medical loss ratio was the poison pill that would eventually drive insurers out of business, and therefore lead to Medicare for A…

I believe the ACA itself was a poison pill that would make the system so inefficient to drive it to collapse and bring about single payer.

The failure of Republicans to implement an alternative has pretty much guaranteed it.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#47

Post by mtberatwork »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #45
mtberatwork wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and could benefit by hiring a conservative just to function as devil's advocate They do hire conservatives (Brooks, Douthat, Kristol, etc) and they just hired Bret Stephens. > (like Fox News did with Alan Colmes) You make it sound as if Alan Colmes, during his time at Fox, was there to give an equal voice to the liberal side of an issue, but in reality he was just marginalized to be the token "lefty" punching bag f…

I don't follow the Times that closely any more, but from what I can see David Brooks is their analog to what Alan Colmes was to Fox. Somewhat like a court jester. But even Brooks knew enough to publicly declare that he wouldn't vote for Trump, even though Trump's political views probably aligned more closely to Brooks than Hillary's views did.

> I don't follow the Times that closely any more, but from what I can see David Brooks is their analog to what Alan Colmes was to Fox. Somewhat like a court jester.

Then I'm not sure why you have such a strong opinion of the NY Times? Also, no one at the paper is using Brooks as a token conservative in the same manner as what Colmes was for Hannity. Brooks even appears weekly on PBS.

> But even Brooks knew enough to publicly declare that he wouldn't vote for Trump, even though Trump's political views probably aligned more closely to Brooks than Hillary's views did.

Political views aren't binary. Brooks can have differing views from Trump and Clinton. I don't understand the underlying need to declare blind allegiance to Trump just because one is a conservative.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#48

Post by pvnick »

cwyers wrote: post #6

On one hand, having an ombudsman (whatever you want to call it) is a good thing for an institution like the Times. On the other hand... having Liz Spayd in that role is pointless, so this isn't a loss. The past year has shown us how the New York Times has let false equivalence and the need to sell newspapers to both sides of the aisle has severely damaged the quality of the paper's coverage, and Spayd has continually…

> false equivalence and the need to sell newspapers to both sides of the aisle

What does that mean? Are you saying you would prefer the paper take a more hardline stance in favor of one side because you perceive that side to be objectively superior in some manner?

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#49

Post by matt4077 »

lettergram wrote: post #38
matt4077 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nate Silver has done some good work on what exactly went wrong, and it was a combination of factors: - (some) polls were systematically off, mostly because they underestimated white non-college turnout and overestimated black turnout. Note that poll errors were actually lower than for any other election–only this time they actually got the winner wrong. - Most of the poll aggregators operated under the assumption of…

The system I've been working on actually predicted a Trump win: https://projectpiglet.com/ The problem was so many people just hated Clinton, and at the time, Trump had more people positive about him.

Then you should be very sceptical of your system. "History proves me right" works for Fidel Castro, but not for lottery winners.

Re: The New York Times Is Eliminating Its Public Editor Role

#50

Post by koolba »

humanrebar wrote: post #40
specialist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wellness is easily measured. Life expectancy, sick days, patient surveys. The fight happens during rationing (bureaucratic triage). So you'd eliminate pharmacy benefit management companies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacy_benefit_management#Li... Or are you saying eliminate insurers (insurance) altogether?

The government can't be rational about what a balanced meal looks like or how tomatoes (fruit? veg?) fit in the picture. There's a reason food lobbying groups exist. > Or are you saying eliminate insurers (insurance) altogether? I'm not saying there's an easy answer, but as long as all health transactions are paying for one party's health with another party's money, we'll have bad outcomes. If the problem is that it'…

According to the government a slice of pizza counts as a serving of vegetables because of the tomato sauce.
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