Similar effect when reading the news on a topic that one is an expert in - they usually get it incredibly wrong. And then you turn the page and read the next article completely forgetting how bad the reporting actually is - there is no reason to assume they do a better job on topics that one is not an expert in! I think this bias had a name but I can't remember it.
I Am Deleting the Blog
111–120 of 1001 posts
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#112I've cancelled my NY Times subscription and encourage everyone here to do the same.
Please contact them and clearly state why you are doing it. Enough people contacting them can change the editor's mind.
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#113A few relevant articles about how the New York Times claims to treat sources: [0]: "The Times sometimes agrees not to identify people who provide information for our articles...Sources often fear for their jobs or business relationships — sometimes even for their safety." [1] "If compassion or the unavoidable conditions of reporting require shielding an identity, the preferred solution is to omit the name and explain…
He wasn't really a source or a person in a hospital or elsewhere governed by privacy rules. As he says himself, his online persona is very lightly pseudonymous. It sucks that he's inconvenienced in this way but it's hard to see how these articles are relevant to his situation. If anyone actually wished him harm, they could probably find his name just as the reporter did before ever talking to him.
I don't agree that he wasn't a source. He seems to be the subject of the article, but he made contact with the reporter and claimed to explain his concerns which were not heeded.
I've seen the New York Times omit the names of refugees who face persecution in their home countries. (I'm trying to find an example, but it's surprisingly hard to search for.) This is a different case, but I think it's broadly comparable.
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#114I stopped trusting reporters about 35 years ago, when I personally witnessed an occurrence, where a reporter was at the scene, and later read what he had written about it in the newspaper. It had practically nothing to do with what really happened, but was written in a way that most of their readers would most likely expect and endorse. I was still very young then, but it opened my eyes, and from then on, I mostly st…
That was bad journalism. Would you also stop trusting all doctors after meeting a bad one?
The bar to be a doctor is higher than having internet and a blog.
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#115I stopped trusting reporters about 35 years ago, when I personally witnessed an occurrence, where a reporter was at the scene, and later read what he had written about it in the newspaper. It had practically nothing to do with what really happened, but was written in a way that most of their readers would most likely expect and endorse. I was still very young then, but it opened my eyes, and from then on, I mostly st…
That was bad journalism. Would you also stop trusting all doctors after meeting a bad one?
Me, sure. From then on they'd have to earn my trust - not just get it because they're doctors...
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#116This is a tragedy, Scott Alexander is such a thoughtful writer. I wish journalists would come up with some professional standards and make the title licensed, like doctor or lawyer. Right now we all recognize how important journalism is but journalists themselves run the gamut from ethical investigative journalists to clickbait manufacturers. Imagine if journalists also had to adhere to the equivalent of attorney cli…
A standards body maybe. But do you not see some ethical concerns of licensing that tells people how to conduct journalism? Freedom of the Press, but only for those who the governing body deems fit? The whole point of a license is to reduce the gamut of people who can practice a profession to just those people who do it the way the license specifies. In a world such as ours, and a country such as the US, it will inevi…
I don’t see it as much different than the general societal norms that we tend to teach children, like “try to be nice” and “it’s okay to avoid people who aren’t nice.” Is that a violation of freedom of speech, or some top-down regulation? I don’t think so.
It probably shouldn’t be “licensing” in the sense of using state or otherwise organized violence to seek out people who violate the norms. We generally don’t teach people to punch anyone in the face who is rude. But having general standards of conduct don’t seem to bad to me.
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#117Edit: Looks like they updated the link and title. Thanks! @dang, you might consider somehow incorporating the name of the blog into the title. I almost didn't click on this because "his blog" is quite generic. Slate Star Codex is frequently posted on HN and is fairly notable.
It's displayed after the title though. There's even a site guideline about this: " If the title includes the name of the site, please take it out, because the site name will be displayed after the link. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The link and title was changed. It was originally another site and a worse title.
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#118Any thoughts on the importance of deleting the blog when various backups such as archive.org exist?
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scott Alexander was not the source. Journalists generally don't reveal sources and some have gone to jail to avoid doing so.
Scott Alexander may not have been the original source, but he is a definitely _a_ source as it seems he was in touch with the reporter. The reporter has an undeniable ethical duty to decide whether to publish his full name after he raises concerns about his safety. I see limited to no news value in publishing his name and substantial risk of harm, but I'm a frequent reader and admirer of the blog.
I don't think the 'substantial risk of harm' is established, at least, not by Scott Alexander's own behaviour - he says himself his pseudonymity was quite thin. Journalists tend to see their responsibility as being primarily to their readers, not the subjects of their stories. Subjects generally don't get to edit stories about themselves - that's considered non-journalism.
Re: I Am Deleting the Blog
#120Similar effect when reading the news on a topic that one is an expert in - they usually get it incredibly wrong. And then you turn the page and read the next article completely forgetting how bad the reporting actually is - there is no reason to assume they do a better job on topics that one is not an expert in! I think this bias had a name but I can't remember it.
Gell-mann Amnesia : https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...