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NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

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Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#111

Post by barrkel »

rayiner wrote: post #59

> Several observers noted the story was timed in such a way as to provide maximum publicity for a bill that the New Media Alliance has been promoting to Congress, called the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. The proposed legislation would exempt newspaper companies from competition laws, which prevent industry-leading entities from collaborating to set prices. The NMA argues this would allow publishers to…

Netflix as a middleman actually doesn't have that much power. The studios are now mostly using Netflix to market sequels. They can drive up the licensing cost of popular content until they extract all the profit.

As a middleman, Netflix is great for the customer though - no need to have a half-dozen sign-ins and always need to remember which service has which series.

In other words, I think you're the opposite of right on competition on the Netflix front. A monopoly interface adds significant value and Netflix isn't currently able to gouge the customer - the studios do that instead.

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#112

Post by Mirioron »

gundmc wrote: post #62
ralph84 wrote: post #56

Any time I see an article in a "mainstream" news outlet on a topic I'm familiar with, the inaccuracies make me cringe. The more familiar I am with the topic, the more inaccuracies I spot. The charitable interpretation is that news outlets have been so decimated by changes in their business model that they can't afford good editors. There are plenty of less charitable interpretations.

Sounds like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[1]. We notice the innacuracies in the fields we are familiar with and then readily believe stories outside of our expertise. Disclaimer - reporting is critically important and by and large journalists are doing their best to understand and describe incredibly complex and esoteric subjects. It's always good to remember there is a lot more nuance behind just about every story th…

I agree they reporting is important but how can we tell that journalists are doing their best? I've seen plenty of instances of straight up lies from journalists in just the past few years that I'm unsure whether I will believe such an assertion anymore. Look at the Trump-Russia collusion story or the Covington kids. If "some guy" on Twitter gives me better information by showing me actual unedited video footage of what happened as opposed to journalists that edit the videos to portray the events in a different light then how am I supposed to believe that they are doing their best?

I think journalists are doing their best, but I think it's in specific niches. For example, when I read articles or see videos from "the tech press" I believe them. When I read an article on anandtech I don't have to think "this is what they're saying, but is it actually true?"

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#113

Post by graeme »

graeme wrote: post #23
donohoe wrote: post #20

This Twitter thread on this subject from Dir of Ad Tech at The Washington Post is worth reading: https://twitter.com/chronotope/status/1138074631980683264

Seems weak. Media are free to make alternative adtech. Google’s ad system has made them more money though. And the above would be true even if Google News didn’t exist. The media has incredibly sloppy thinking about their business model. What monopoly prevents the post from managing their own ads? They choose not to.

I should update this to say that AMP seems much more of a thing to critique as regards the news and adtech. Thought of this while reading today's thread on how a bug in AMP prevents links to a publisher's web page.

News sites more or less must use amp to rank, I think, which means they need google adtech.

Could be wrong, not an expert, but it seems an actual legit critique the media could make.

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#114

Post by weberc2 »

avinium wrote: post #71
isbadawi wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm glad you posted this. I was aware of the original tweet a few years ago, but didn't know the context until now. I haven't read the referenced article so I can't comment on whether it's a valid criticism or not. But it's clearly satirical.

To be fair, she has had a steady stream of Tweets going back to 2014 that were pretty unambiguously racist (or if you're of the "you can't be racist against white people" persuasion, some other term that means something like "anti-white"), so you could be forgiven for mistaking the context in this one case.

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#115

Post by whenchamenia »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #90
kortilla wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>reporting is critically important and by and large journalists are doing their best to understand and describe incredibly complex and esoteric subjects. No, by and large they absolutely aren’t doing their best. If they were the Gell-Mann amnesia effect wouldn’t be so prominent because it’s trivial to run stories by experts on topics. Most reporters are crunched for time and just churn out crap as fast as possible.

Which expert on journalism production processes did you query to verify that statement?

You can simply observe the output and see the bias. Its not a theoretical matter.

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#117

Post by roywiggins »

noetic_techy wrote: post #76
roywiggins wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically about the NYT as opposed to any other newspaper? Opinion and editorial are explicitly not part of the newsroom and are published in a different section under a different heading. You may have some problems with the people they hire as opinion commentators but hiring opinionated commentators is absolutely part of the job of a good newspaper. Lefty types regularly make fun of NYT's conservative and ce…

>>Lefty types regularly make fun of NYT conservative and centrist commentators Do you have some examples of this?

I had a quick trawl through Splinter, which is a reliable source for prickly takes on NYT commentators. I'm not going to argue whether they're good, reasoned, or accurate takes, but that absolutely it's a regular, normal, and extremely popular hobby on the left to make fun of NYT's worst commentators.

On Bret Stephens: https://splinternews.com/by-all-means-tell-me-more-milk-boy-...

On Bari Weiss: https://splinternews.com/the-new-york-times-is-shipping-bari...

On Thomas Friedman: https://splinternews.com/thomas-friedman-goes-full-fascist-a...

On Ross Douthat: https://splinternews.com/nyt-columnist-who-wanted-to-ban-por...

On Liz Mair: https://splinternews.com/new-york-times-allows-seattle-born-...

Everything tagged with "New York Times": https://splinternews.com/tag/new-york-times

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#118

Post by ergothus »

kortilla wrote: post #93
pm90 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiring journalists with a strong homogenous political agenda is a poor way to produce neutral, fact-based reporting. Have you considered the possibility that these SJW's are actually representative of today's youth? If they are, shouldn't NYT be hiring even more of them? I really don't care about what the backgrounds of Journalists are, as long as they adhere to the principles of journalism (honesty, a desire to qu…

Have you considered that if you are fighting for anything other than truth, you have a serious conflict of interest as a journalist?

The problem being that most everyone thinks they're fighting for the truth.

Person A will complain that "SJW types" are being hired, the complaint being that they are biased against the truth.

Person B will complain that "SJW types" AREN'T being hired, the complaint being that people biased against the truth are being hired instead.

I don't know the answers, but I do think the "let's present both sides" of journalism has left journalism doing a terrible job of effectively presenting the truth. Finding a path that embraces objective reporting AND denies efforts to exploit the weaknesses of systems designed to promote objectivity is something we've not figured out yet.

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#119

Post by asdffdsa »

sametmax wrote: post #101
mr_t wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naive question: What makes you think that Netflix will probably die?

Amazon and disney just have more firepower. Amazon has the expertise in hosting, disney in content making. Amazon can drain customers with prime, and disney with the existing portfolio. Both have infinite cash to aquire and create new licences. No matter how good I think netflix is, and despite their now long and good track record, they are entering a new fight bare handed against machine guns.

Netflix only needs to make a few good movies/comedy specials/tv shows a year and I'll keep my subscription. Amazon/Disney does not put out good content

Re: NYT promotes questionable study on Google and the media

#120

Post by rhino369 »

umvi wrote: post #6

"Straightforward" extrapolation is the worst! Reminds me of the RIAA damages numbers often quoted in courts "Well, it was a $2 mp3, and ~100M copies were downloaded, that's $2 * 100M = $200M in lost revenue/damages!!" As if 1 download = 1 guaranteed lost sale. On the contrary sometimes 1 download = 1 future sale where there was none before! By that logic the easiest way to make a million is just to download (or copy)…

This is amateur hour RIAA damages calculations. To get a truly spicy number you gotta multiply the number of downloads by the statutory limit for willful infringement--$150,000 per infringed song.

So your ipod 4th gen with 5000 songs is worth $750 million.

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