Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 360 posts

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

#201

Post by JumpCrisscross »

namdnay wrote: post #192
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tech bubble I think OP misread the quarterly figure as an annual one. “Tech bubble” usually applies to companies with much less than $100 million of profits.

I think the idea of comparing to the tech bubble is that it has skewed our perceptions of how much a company should make per employee, and how fast it should grow. Indeed many bubble companies are making little or no profits, but they don't have 3700 employees to pay every month + printing presses, buildings etc. The ROI is very different

> The ROI is very different

If you’re making “little or no profits” you have no ROI.

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

#202

Post by namdnay »

naturalgradient wrote: post #85
unixhero wrote: post #78

Offtopic: I am a European, and I like to read quality journalism. Which do you recommend, a subscruption to Washington Post or NYT?

The Washington Post. The NYT is unapologetically taking a side in the culture war and on many issues (campus politics, feminism, title IX, migration..) will ever only let one side make their point. The Wapo in my observation has a much better mix of both sides.

The thing about declaring a war is that you force people onto sides, even if they want nothing to do with your war. And you can then use this to feed your own propaganda even more.

If tomorrow for some strange reason half of the UK decides that actually the old testament is right and we should demolish all the Egyptian statues in Kensington, that doesn't make the Guardian part of a war if they say that's ludicrous. It just makes them sensible.

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

#203

Post by namdnay »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #201
namdnay wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea of comparing to the tech bubble is that it has skewed our perceptions of how much a company should make per employee, and how fast it should grow. Indeed many bubble companies are making little or no profits, but they don't have 3700 employees to pay every month + printing presses, buildings etc. The ROI is very different

> The ROI is very different If you’re making “little or no profits” you have no ROI.

The idea being that you plan to make massive profits down the line. No VC is expecting their startups to cruise comfortably at 3700 employees and 80M yearly profit

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

#204

Post by anthonybsd »

tim333 wrote: post #173
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…

[flagged]

[flagged]

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

#205

Post by pmyteh »

unixhero wrote: post #78

Offtopic: I am a European, and I like to read quality journalism. Which do you recommend, a subscruption to Washington Post or NYT?

The Washington Post and the NY Times are both very fine papers: they take the traditional 20th Century American view of journalism (attempting to be objective and authoritative, and taking accuracy seriously) which is a bit alien to the European print tradition, but that's not a bad thing if you want different perspectives. The Wall Street Journal is also a fine paper if you like your news more economically and financially-focused. The Post is probably better for the inside-baseball of US Politics, the Times probably better overall, and for global coverage. But that's just my opinion - try all three and see which works for you.

The opinion sections are of highly variable quality, as people here keep pointing out. And these have always escaped the objectivity ethic. I'd just avoid reading them.

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

#206

Post by anthonybsd »

peteretep wrote: post #112
ageek123 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say more about why it's a good thing that they hired Sarah Jeong, who has a history of racist and sexist tweets?

It's interesting, I wasn't at all aware of her until a day or two ago. The first link I read about her was this: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-t... Which shows her "racist" tweets, and shows how they're only really racist if you strip away all context for them. It then shows how the alt-right use this as a tactic. I found that very interesting, and I also now find it interesting to see wh…

>Which shows her "racist" tweets, and shows how they're only really racist if you strip away all context for them.

Can you think of a context in which it's OK for a white/asian person to use the "N-word"?

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

#208

Post by moduspol »

peteretep wrote: post #112
ageek123 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say more about why it's a good thing that they hired Sarah Jeong, who has a history of racist and sexist tweets?

It's interesting, I wasn't at all aware of her until a day or two ago. The first link I read about her was this: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17644704/sarah-jeong-new-york-t... Which shows her "racist" tweets, and shows how they're only really racist if you strip away all context for them. It then shows how the alt-right use this as a tactic. I found that very interesting, and I also now find it interesting to see wh…

Do you think we'd even get to the point where it's being discussed if the tweets were about black people?

Why does the supposed context claimed by the person making the statements only matter when someone goes too far on the left, but not on the right?

Surely there are other potential editors to hire. Are they truly so low on candidates that this is the best person they could find for the job? What does it say about their competence as an organization?

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

#209

Post by untog »

VSTN wrote: post #146
toyg wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how old you are, but from a 40-yo perspective, the NYT being seen as "leftist" is a terrifying signal of how right-wing the mainstream political window has gone in the US. The traditional megaphone of the East-Coast moneyed, the newspaper that sold the Iraq War to the public with lie after lie, is now seen as a bastion of liberalism. The US is in a very dark place right now. Last time it happened, it too…

This is because there is a massive confusion of the political spectrum which is better divided as 4 parts rather than 2. The NYT isn't left at all when it comes to its views on how the economy should be run. But on social issues it certainly is a left rag. In fact, in what kind of environment but the leftomost extremist side could one tolerate the presence of an employee like Sarah Jeong who said such nice things as…

The Jeong controversy blow my mind. Do you really think that she was being serious when she said "white people are only fit to live underground like groveling goblins"? No part of you thinks she was joking? Not even as you read the words "groveling goblins"? In reality, she was making a (bad) joke criticising another media figure's perspective that everything is open to debate:

https://www.twitter.com/awprokop/status/1025484876278112261

It's yet another manufactured controversy by the right, and it's disappointing to see so many people parrot it unquestioningly. She agrees that her previous jokes were in bad taste and regrets them. She doesn't actually think white people should live in caves, as ought to be obvious to everyone.

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

#210

Post by untog »

xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #183
tim333 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Jeong's tweets were very, very obviously jokes. To suggest it's evidence of "hating white people" is just parroting manufactured outrage.

In any case. WSJ isn't more objective that NYT. It's just further to the right, which is why it appears objective to someone on the right.

Post reply on HN