New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers • Hacker News Board

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#131

Post by ericdykstra » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:02 AM UTC

naturalgradient wrote: post #93

The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off…

Maybe in the past the NYT had earned their reputation as a trustworthy source, but they're certainly eroding that reputation at a blistering pace. They might survive as a partisan publisher, plenty do, but I always go into NYT articles expecting bias in reporting.

It's not just the politics, either. I ran across this article from just a couple of days ago and couldn't believe it got past an editor: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/well/why-take-diet-advice...

> Keep in mind that the life expectancy of people before the advent of agriculture 15,000 years ago rarely reached or exceeded 40, so their risk of developing the so-called diseases of civilization is unknown.

To completely ignore how infant mortality affects life expectancy shows a complete lack of knowledge of history or statistics.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#132

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:04 AM UTC

naturalgradient wrote: post #93

The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off…

Everybody thinks that they're unbiased, and everyone else is biased. Hence, the target audience of any newspaper thinks it's unbiased.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#133

Post by ggm » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:05 AM UTC

naturalgradient wrote: post #129

ggm wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just saying you don't like their editorial. So.. don't subscribe! There is no trickery here. Far left.. you really have no idea how silly you look. There is almost no institution in the USA which actively publishes a broadsheet newspaper you could call left, let alone "far" left. Middle of the road looks pretty left from a ranty right view maybe. (I'm a Guardian subscriber btw)

To be honest I think you are just proving my point by getting upset and calling me 'ranty right'. Tribalism sells because it triggers emotions like these. It works for the Guardian just as well as it works for the NYT, Fox news or anyone else.

Oh please. You said far left. You invited the response. The NYT is simply not left, or far left. To clarify can you self identify your position in this spectrum? You think you are middle-of-the-road and the NYT is far left journalism?

Look, I really don't care. Go talk to people with a range of views but saying the NYT is left wing journalism just beggars belief. Have you ever read a left wing paper? Here's a hint: the guardian is not a left wing paper. The morning star, which was the daily worker. That's a left wing paper.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#134

Post by dingaling » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:06 AM UTC

Dwolb wrote: post #76

That’s just insane. This is a great accomplishment for NYT but I’m worried about what it means for the rest of the industry. NYT switching its business model has to be one of the most public and well-executed digital transformations of an old company ever. If NYT is the best at this and can only turn 24M a quarter, almost everyone else must be absolutely bleeding. This would confirm most of the newspapers out there a…

> only turn 24M a quarter,

That's $24 million left unspent after salaries, benefits, travel and accommodation, equipment purchases, AP and Bloomberg fees, client entertainment, interest repayment, rents, board jollies...

I don't see what's unhealthily low about that profit.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#135

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

naturalgradient wrote: post #93

The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off…

After all, the NYT did leak the existence of the Doomsday Machine to the Soviets. It's why I don't subscribe.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#136

Post by nl » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:19 AM UTC

ericdykstra wrote: post #131

naturalgradient wrote: post #93

The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off…

Maybe in the past the NYT had earned their reputation as a trustworthy source, but they're certainly eroding that reputation at a blistering pace. They might survive as a partisan publisher, plenty do, but I always go into NYT articles expecting bias in reporting. It's not just the politics, either. I ran across this article from just a couple of days ago and couldn't believe it got past an editor: https://www.nytime…

I don't understand your point about the Paleo diet.

I just Googled, and apparently the "ignore how infant mortality affects life expectancy" is a talking point of pro-Paleo websites. This is a good point (although it seems to ignore the high mortality rate of women during childbirth), but seems pretty irrelevant to the rest of the article.

Ignoring that, it seemed a reasonably well thought-out counterpoint to another fad diet.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#137

Post by joekrill » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:22 AM UTC

ehsankia wrote: post #44

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

It's surprising to see how small they are. Only 3.8 million subscribers, and you have to imagine that some percentage of that barely reads their content. I wonder if there's public numbers estimating how many people in total read the New York Times, and how it compares to emerging forms of media and entertainment like YouTube. One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cance…

I canceled mine last week exactly because of those dark patterns. They also show ads even if you have a subscription, which sounds very backward to me. I'd love to support them, but those practices don't belong in 2018. EDIT: Oh, looks like the cancellation didn't go through and they charged me for one more month, sweet. I might just go to my bank and tell them to block the source. Or even better, I may have found a…

> They also show ads even if you have a subscription, which sounds very backward to me.

So are you also cancelling your cable subscription, any magazine subscriptions, physical newspaper subscriptions, no longer driving on toll roads with billboard...?

I'm not saying it's right, or good, or valid--but the standard practice, for as long as I can remember, for most mediums, is to still show ads for things you pay for. So I'm not sure how that makes it "backwards".

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#138

Post by spondyl » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:22 AM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #96

spondyl wrote: post #57

As much as I like the NYT, as mentioned below, their unsubscribe functionality sucks. I sent them an email last December requesting to unsubscribe. I didn't follow up on it and eventually forgot about it. Eventually, they email me around May to apologise that my email was "delayed" due to a technical glitch they had just discovered. Great but I still never got an actual unsubscription processed. A few months later, a…

> A few weeks later, I was emailed a "resubscription offer" which genuinely frustrated me as you might imagine. If it's a single one, I don't think they're overdoing it. Resubscription offers are pretty much standard practice. I know some people who regularly cancel their cellphone contract after the minimum duration in order to get discount offers for the next contract period.

I get them every other week generally. It was more the timing that annoyed me, haha

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#139

Post by lsmarigo » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #53

anarazel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> One criticism of New York Times that I've read online is that they won't allow you to cancel your digital subscription through their website. They force you to call them. I'm not sure if that has changed recently, but that's a pretty questionable dark pattern. FWIW, I have a "cancel subscription" link in my profile.

Same, I canceled easily via the web app recently when they decided to doubled down on being another partisan rag like WaPo, feeding off the outrage culture which does well on social media these days. I see it's paid off commercially, no doubt, as it's seemed to have attracted a new wider user base as the lower quality comment sections now reflects on every political article. Including the NYT selected preferred comme…

  they decided to doubled down on being another partisan rag like WaPo, feeding off the outrage culture

is it really a decision when the other option is financial ruin? Thoughtful, calm, reasoned posts don't stand a chance in the context of online media. The system we've ended up with fundamentally requires outrage/fear/clickbait to stand a chance of being heard among the noise.

Re: New York Times Co. Reports $24M Profit, Thanks to Digital Subscribers

#140

Post by lsmarigo » Thu, Aug 09, 2018, 9:28 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #124

naturalgradient wrote: post #93

The greatest marketing trick the NYT has ever pulled off is presenting themselves as the last bastion of objectivity in the trump era. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think the most recent Sarah Jeong controversy and virtually all reporting on migration, feminism, campus politics etc shows this. Mind you this is from a European perspective where I see almost all reporting about politics here as copying off…

You're just saying you don't like their editorial. So.. don't subscribe! There is no trickery here. Far left.. you really have no idea how silly you look. There is almost no institution in the USA which actively publishes a broadsheet newspaper you could call left, let alone "far" left. Middle of the road looks pretty left from a ranty right view maybe. (I'm a Guardian subscriber btw)

  There is almost no institution in the USA which actively publishes a broadsheet newspaper you could call left, let alone "far" left. Middle of the road looks pretty left from a ranty right view maybe.

You are correct and GP betrays his bias here. You want to see far left check out Chapo Trap House, thats far left and it's a far cry from what NYT is publishing. Discouraging to see this here.