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I Am Deleting the Blog

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Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#261

Post by mrweasel »

npstr wrote: post #111

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 first heard this explained by John C. Dvorak and it has terrified me ever since.

Originally I just believe that journalist just had a terrible understanding of IT, but when you think about it, there's no reason why it's just IT. Why would journalist have a better understanding of medicine, politics, climate, finance or any other topic covered. Basically you're left it a situation where you can only trust highly specialized publication, who hire subject matter experts and let them act as the journalist.

This raises the question: Are journalists actually required?

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#262

Post by mprev »

manigandham wrote: post #229
virgilp wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think unfortunately journalists are trained to take phrases out of context so that they sound "sensational" / trigger emotional responses in the readers. You quickly find that out if give out interviews - you need to be very mindful how things may sound if taken out of context. E.g. a while ago a newspaper here took me an interview/ they were building a story about people that had somewhat remarkable results in sch…

Those are not journalists. They are outrage-farming ad impression generators.

I don't think that distinction is helpful. Journalism is too important to our society for us to give the profession a free pass by giving the shadier parts a different name.

I'm sure that wasn't your intention but a profession won't improve if there's a way for its practitioners to shrug off criticism by telling themselves some version of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#263

Post by numlock86 »

Knowing well how NYT "operates" I don't believe this story, sorry. Surely this is about some sort of de-escalation or weird deal with them, but I don't buy the motivation about staying pseudonymous. It literally takes less than a minute of browsing Wikipedia to find his full name. And I just assume more people have access to Wikipedia than to NYT.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#264

Post by nullc »

Anyone saying that it would be a non-issue because people could find out the information is they looked hard enough obviously haven't personally or had their friends/family subject to the Times' entirely unaccountable abuse of power and absence of ethics.

There is a big difference between something being buried where people with the interest and competence could go find it and it being put up in lights. Particularly when the lights are the bonfire of a hit piece.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#265

Post by quantummkv »

prvc wrote: post #152
sxp wrote: post #5

> He told me it would be a mostly positive piece about how we were an interesting gathering place for people in tech, and how we were ahead of the curve on some aspects of the coronavirus situation. It probably would have been a very nice article. Unfortunately, he told me he had discovered my real name and would reveal it in the article, ie doxx me. ... When I expressed these fears to the reporter, he just said that…

Is there any conceivable good reason for the NYT to publish the name in an article on the claimed topic, despite the author's wishes to the contrary? Can't think of any, unless the reporter was also misrepresenting the subject of the story or the angle he is taking.

> Can't think of any, unless the reporter was also misrepresenting the subject of the story or the angle he is taking.

That is exactly what was happening there. There is no other plausible explanation for the behavior.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#266

Post by numlock86 »

jychang wrote: post #214
Tinyyy wrote: post #204

I’m not trying to dox the author, but I just want to point out that he blogged about his own name on SCC(in 2019 no less), which is quite counterproductive if he wanted his last name private. https://archive.vn/d9HrI Edit: The linked blog post was still live prior to the site takedown, so I’m assuming it’s acceptable to link to an archive of it.

You can easily find Scott's last name in multiple places. He makes a point though, being able to dig out his last name is very different from publishing it in the New York Times.

> being able to dig out his last name is very different from publishing it in the New York Times

It's on Wikipedia. How's that "digging out"?

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#267

Post by ehnto »

baddox wrote: post #116
ehnto wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Licensing or regulation is a very particular construct in relation to employment, and nothing like education of ethics.

I am on board with ethics education as a way to impart societal values. I'm pretty sure it's a component in most journalism degrees, but perhaps it should be part of early education more distinctly as well.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#268

Post by otherme123 »

npstr wrote: post #111

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.

From time to time the regional newspaper contacts my workplace for news (headers like "Business LLC is doing this thing to end world famine") to fill blank space. Every single time we try to be as exact as possible while leaving technicalities aside, but the reporters every single time manage to 1) extract a click-baity/sensationalist headline from an isolated phrase during the dialog and 2) gets 90% of the text slightly wrong on the limit of being a lie.

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#269

Post by zozbot234 »

mrweasel wrote: post #261
npstr wrote: post #111

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 first heard this explained by John C. Dvorak and it has terrified me ever since. Originally I just believe that journalist just had a terrible understanding of IT, but when you think about it, there's no reason why it's just IT. Why would journalist have a better understanding of medicine, politics, climate, finance or any other topic covered. Basically you're left it a situation where you can only trust highly spe…

It's not just IT. You can definitely spot terrible understanding of stuff like policymaking/policy analysis and social science, business, etc. Exceptions do exist but they're rare and tend to be well-known on that account. (And I'm definitely not saying that an average journalist should be an expert in these things; what's missing is even the basic knowledge required to e.g. frame issues properly and provide missing information to aid comprehension.)

Re: I Am Deleting the Blog

#270

Post by atroche »

numlock86 wrote: post #266
jychang wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can easily find Scott's last name in multiple places. He makes a point though, being able to dig out his last name is very different from publishing it in the New York Times.

> being able to dig out his last name is very different from publishing it in the New York Times It's on Wikipedia. How's that "digging out"?

I can't see it on Wikipedia. Do you have a link?
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