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Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

nytimes.com

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Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#11

Post by 5trokerac3 »

ReptileMan wrote: post #8
ANPEQ-1 wrote: post #3

It is always entertaining when the 'newspaper of record' shames other publications for their mistakes and failings.

They are working hard to lose the newspaper of record status. They omitted some critical information last week in the Kavanaugh story and blamed it on editorial process. Reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly said in an interview on MSNBC that they wrote in the draft of their Sunday Review piece that a woman who Kavanaugh was said to have exposed himself to while a student at Yale had told others she had no recollec…

You're going to get downvoted for sharing wrongthink and not screaming "hate!" at Goldstein... I mean Kavanaugh, but you're ultimately right.

The thing is, though, there is no more "newspaper of record". The newspaper industry has been in such a downward spiral for such a long time that, like any other industry bleeding money, quality has severely suffered. Try to find a single notable paper that adheres to the objectivity guidelines of the AP guidebook. Hell, even the AP doesn't do that anymore.

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#13

Post by hkhanna »

ReptileMan wrote: post #8
ANPEQ-1 wrote: post #3

It is always entertaining when the 'newspaper of record' shames other publications for their mistakes and failings.

They are working hard to lose the newspaper of record status. They omitted some critical information last week in the Kavanaugh story and blamed it on editorial process. Reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly said in an interview on MSNBC that they wrote in the draft of their Sunday Review piece that a woman who Kavanaugh was said to have exposed himself to while a student at Yale had told others she had no recollec…

> Couple more of these and they will be in Buzzfeed level of trustworthiness.

This is unnecessarily harsh. The New York Times is a massive company with hundreds of journalists and editors.

If every once in a while a journalistic organization makes a mistake, I think it's reasonable to point it out, have them publicly correct the record, and then let it go.

Harping on every honest (if sloppy) mistake as if it is evidence that an organization is totally incompetent or dishonest is something autocrats do to de-legitimize journalism itself. So long as 99% of the time, they don't make mistakes, and so long as they promptly acknowledge and correct the mistakes when they are called out, I think journalism done in good faith (like the work done at The Times) deserves our benefit of the doubt in an era when it is under unprecedented attack by leaders worldwide.

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#14

Post by heymijo »

buboard wrote: post #7

This was inevitable and is the culmination of two things: - Too much hypothesis-driven science that results in statistically significant, but untrustworthy results. It's easy to find statistically significant data to backup whatever crazy thing your brain comes up with. - Too much pseudo-scientifically backed popular press. Popular science is useful for disemminating science that has been solidified through decades o…

> Popular science is useful for disemminating science that has been solidified through decades of falsiability tests, not last month's papers.

Wow, never seen this worded so clearly before. Thanks for the great summation buboard!

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#15

Post by tyri_kai_psomi »

Add to this Richard Dawkins new book, "Outgrowing God" which is rife with inaccuracies, baseless conjecture about the motivations behind some of the ancients civilizations he talks about (an assyriologist posted a pretty pointed takedown of some of the inaccuracies on twitter https://twitter.com/GHeathWhyte/status/1175081067943997440), and theology so bad you would question whether or not he himself has ever actually opened up a Bible.

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#16

Post by ANPEQ-1 »

hkhanna wrote: post #13
ReptileMan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are working hard to lose the newspaper of record status. They omitted some critical information last week in the Kavanaugh story and blamed it on editorial process. Reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly said in an interview on MSNBC that they wrote in the draft of their Sunday Review piece that a woman who Kavanaugh was said to have exposed himself to while a student at Yale had told others she had no recollec…

> Couple more of these and they will be in Buzzfeed level of trustworthiness. This is unnecessarily harsh. The New York Times is a massive company with hundreds of journalists and editors. If every once in a while a journalistic organization makes a mistake, I think it's reasonable to point it out, have them publicly correct the record, and then let it go. Harping on every honest (if sloppy) mistake as if it is evide…

As a former NYTimes employee, I can assure you that 99% of the work is not done in good faith. It's all activism now, top to bottom. There's a few good eggs granted, but the newspaper has an agenda and uses their pseudo-objectivity/newspaper of record as cover and concealment.

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#17

Post by kop316 »

hkhanna wrote: post #13
ReptileMan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are working hard to lose the newspaper of record status. They omitted some critical information last week in the Kavanaugh story and blamed it on editorial process. Reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly said in an interview on MSNBC that they wrote in the draft of their Sunday Review piece that a woman who Kavanaugh was said to have exposed himself to while a student at Yale had told others she had no recollec…

> Couple more of these and they will be in Buzzfeed level of trustworthiness. This is unnecessarily harsh. The New York Times is a massive company with hundreds of journalists and editors. If every once in a while a journalistic organization makes a mistake, I think it's reasonable to point it out, have them publicly correct the record, and then let it go. Harping on every honest (if sloppy) mistake as if it is evide…

A random mistake yes, I would agree.

However, this mistake was a piece of information that even the Washington Post said was the reason they did not report on it [1]. To confound it, this was a piece seemingly to drum up interest for the books that the writers of the story also wrote.

Those facts don't make this seem to be an honest mistake. Those facts makes it look to be two authors promoting a book and hoping a bombshell article will drum up sales for their books. It's awfully convenient that the editors took out a couple of details that make it a non-story.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-book-on-kav...

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#18

Post by dhosek »

darkerside wrote: post #4

I'd always assumed publishers _were_ doing this already. If not, whence the whining and chagrin over low rent "bloggers" somehow not being comparable to deal authors and journalists? I realize this isn't as widely held a view as it was 10-20 years ago, but bloggers used to be looked at with disdain, untrustworthy because of the lack of reputability that came with published materials. This makes me further question wh…

Most (if not all) large magazines fact check their published material. The New Yorker even fact checks the poetry (seriously!)

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#19

Post by h4waii »

budu3 wrote: post #12
wwqrd wrote: post #2

I'd settle for spelling and malapropism checks.

Well in their defense, we don't want to pay for newspapers and so you can argue that this is the result of a lack of resources.

If you can't provide a quality service cause nobody is willing to pay for it, end your service. Rip the bandage off.

At the very least, end it on a high note that you can be proud of -- don't let it degrade slowly until people are openly mocking it.

Re: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

#20

Post by RankingMember »

NavekM wrote: post #10

The Naomi Wolf one is most excruciating listen on radio I've ever heard. https://mobile.twitter.com/thymetikon/status/113170257787850...

Awkward surely, but in this day and age I can at least give her credit for listening and not trying to bluster past it like so many public figures when confronted with inconvenient facts.
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