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Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times

reich.hms.harvard.edu

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Re: Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times

#141

Post by masonic »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #86
kauffj wrote: post #60

Perhaps there was a time when the New York Times could be trusted, but that era ended at least several years ago. Off the top of my head: - The New York Times fired Quinn Norton basically for being willing to talk to weev ( https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/the-n... ) - The New York Times fired Razib Khan for reporting on facts that are basically consensus opinion among geneticists and intelligen…

I thought this admission/apology from NYT after the 2016 election was interesting. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-reade... we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to…

This is hilarious considering that the NYT's web section on the 2016 election results showed HRC as having over 50% of the popular vote from Tuesday night on.

Only later was it qualified to say (paraphrased) as "uh, we meant percentage of the popular vote that went to HRC or Trump". But they had never, ever computed their masthead popular vote counts that way before, and they didn't qualify those limited counts until 11 days after the election.

Re: Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times

#142

Post by kortilla »

kelnos wrote: post #122
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t read daily news or long form articles at all. At the end of the day, I don’t need to have an opinion on most things. I’d rather be ignorant than cultivate opinions based on journalists who are peddling narrative over facts. Every now and then I’ll deep dive into an area for whatever reason. E.g. when Trump did his tax proposal, it directly affected us because of the reduction of the marriage penalty. So I loo…

Whether or not the corporate tax cuts put us more in line with other developed Western nations is immaterial. It was not balanced with other new revenue sources or cuts to federal programs. The GOP also pushed it as a big deal for the poor and middle class, which is only (somewhat) true for the short term. That is what news outlets were pissed about.

Why were news outlets pissed about an imbalanced budget? They don’t seem to have an issue with AOC proposing un-funded programs.

Re: Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times

#143

Post by rossdavidh »

danieltillett wrote: post #139
rossdavidh wrote: post #40

As someone who has (once) written an opinion piece for the NYT, I wonder how much the published piece resembled the author's original text. My experience: https://www.rosshartshorn.net/stuffrossthinksabout/nyt_opini...

I have been through something similar (not with the NYT) with the same result. In fact I can't think of a single news story I have personal knowledge of that came out the media meat grinder showing any resembalance to what went in - pink slime more closely resembles a cow than these stories to the facts.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

Re: Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times

#144

Post by iamdave »

rossdavidh wrote: post #132
iamdave wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (once) wrote a Sports Illustrated opinion article years ago (similar situation to yours: made a comment on twitter to one of the popular talking heads, talking head took notice and replied, SI took notice, asked me to write something), your experience matched mine from the editing and review standpoint. At first sitting back and reading the suggested edits and changes in place I had a similar first reaction as you…

Very interesting to hear that. I guess I am not surprised. I felt that my basic opinion was there, but an opinion of theirs had been layered on top, in a very politically-oriented way. I don't know if this was conscious or not.

I suspect this will be a take that someone is going to have a problem with, or maybe many do-but this is kind of the editor's job. Editorials while probably not the express opinion of the publication you're writing for does need to at least carry enough of an opinion of theme to stay consistent with readers expectations when they pick up $Publication_Weekly$.

Would it be nice to see if a publication just decided to run editorials contrary to or perhaps ones that eviscerated a viewpoint or position said publication has been known to hold-and entertain plurality for plurality's sake?

Probably. If that's what the readers have come to expect, probably.

But as a default condition of running a newspaper? I think senior editors like keeping their jobs too much for that.

Re: Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times

#145

Post by rhizome »

laretluval wrote: post #118
rhizome wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a long-existing term for this: "editorial policy," which is a fundamental feature of all publications. All. In programming, this would be like complaining about the existence of indenting.

If I thought indenting was lowering the quality of programming I would comment about it too. If the last decade or so has shown anything it is that people are tired of the standard operating procedures of legacy media. Maybe the idea that the editorials all present a unified narrative is part of that.

"Legacy media" is itself a misnomer, unless you're suggesting that something replace "editorial policy?" What could that something be?

On reread, is it actually about "editorials?" Because that's not what editorial policy is entirely about. Partially, yes, but not completely.

Re: Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times

#146

Post by dang »

_bxg1 wrote: post #65

"I have mixed feelings about the NYT piece -- on the one hand it has a lot of valid criticisms and brings sorely needed critical eye to _________; on the other hand it is sensationalistic, too long, and very unfair to _________ -- I guess they needed a villain for the piece." I cancelled my subscription to the NYT because I felt this way about many of their pieces.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18961676.
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