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Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

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Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#71

Post by ardy42 »

renewiltord wrote: post #40

The kind of journalism that these people do is dead as a professional information-delivery job because it is outcompeted by obsessive bloggers since the advent of the ubiquitous Internet. It is an entertainment business and behaves like an entertainment business, which means that the participants are incentivized to create buzz, etc. If your news sources are primarily these, then you’re missing out on a lot of action…

> The kind of journalism that these people do is dead as a professional information-delivery job because it is outcompeted by obsessive bloggers since the advent of the ubiquitous Internet.

Eh, not so much. That's not much different than saying that journalism has been out-competed by the Facebook News Feed. It might be true that they've "outcompeted" journalism by pulling the rug out from under its revenue model, but they certainly haven't out-competed it from an information-delivery perspective.

Blogs/social media is full of grossly unreliable information, for the most part due to the lack of professional journalistic standards. If they're amateur, then they have greatly reduced coverage due to lack of time and experience. If they're professional, then they've either recreated traditional journalism (with all the same difficulties) or they exist explicitly as PR to push some agenda. I'm reminded of the hordes or mattress review blogs that are mostly owned by or tacking kickbacks from some mattress company or other (see https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...).

The idea that blogs could replace journalism is a dated, idealistic, early-00s idea. The best they ever managed to consistently do was to was replicate the hot air of the opinion pages. Sure, occasionally amateur blog gets a scoop, but they're relatively few and far between, separated by chasms of noise.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#72

Post by Pils »

gonehome wrote: post #59
Pils wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Quora piece contains a lot of conjecture on the part of the author, who clearly has an ax to grind with the media. If you don't believe the conspiracy that "the Verge media outlet is specifically targeting female founders" the argument completely falls apart. If you read the original Away article, Korey clearly crossed multiple lines and was creating a toxic work environment. As a tech worker, I think its right a…

I don’t disagree that the original Away article showed bad behavior. Both things can be true though, the slack messages/toxic environment from Korey in that first article can be bad and it can be wrong for Taylor to mean tweet without addressing the content of any of Korey’s points about the media (which are valid), and everything Lorenz did to escalate and mislead from there can be wrong too. For clarity the media c…

I'm unsure how the supposed bad behavior on Taylor's part reduces your confidence in the original Away article, which was written by a completely separate journalist, but I'm sure you have a good reason to make such an inference.

I fundamentally believe we are approaching this incident from fundamentally different perspectives. I saw Taylor's original tweet as a form of "correcting the record" in response to Korey's obvious spin on the whole thing, rather than trying to open a debate on media-tech relations (which is what it became ultimately due to Balaji's derailment). It's unfortunate that Taylor's tweet contained incorrect information on Korey's current job status, but that appeared to be a minor issue to me, but in other contexts could be construed as "misleading". You seem to be of the perspective that this incident is a symptom of a larger, systemic issue in journalism, an issue I have a lot of sympathy towards, so by all means go off.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#73

Post by gonehome »

Pils wrote: post #72
gonehome wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t disagree that the original Away article showed bad behavior. Both things can be true though, the slack messages/toxic environment from Korey in that first article can be bad and it can be wrong for Taylor to mean tweet without addressing the content of any of Korey’s points about the media (which are valid), and everything Lorenz did to escalate and mislead from there can be wrong too. For clarity the media c…

I'm unsure how the supposed bad behavior on Taylor's part reduces your confidence in the original Away article, which was written by a completely separate journalist, but I'm sure you have a good reason to make such an inference. I fundamentally believe we are approaching this incident from fundamentally different perspectives. I saw Taylor's original tweet as a form of "correcting the record" in response to Korey's…

I think Taylor could have engaged directly on the content of what Steph said, as well as point out the context from the previous article that could be a potential cause of motivated reasoning to keep in mind when considering Steph’s arguments.

That would have been professional and reasonable.

The tweet Taylor wrote was neither of those things and proved Korey’s point more than if Taylor had said nothing.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#74

Post by TimTheTinker »

dragonwriter wrote: post #68
TimTheTinker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalism’s purpose is to report current and past events that have a bearing on history — both political and social. You may not want to work with a former KKK member, but that doesn’t mean the press (or anyone) has any business exposing their sins in public, unless there are specific crimes for which penal justice has yet to be served—and even then, a wise journalist would do well to contact the DA instead of publi…

> Journalism’s purpose is to report current and past events that have a bearing on history — both political and social. No, it's not. Journalism serves the current public interest, not history, except insofar as the latter serves the former. > You may not want to work with a former KKK member, but that doesn’t mean the press (or anyone) has any business exposing their sins in public, unless there are specific crimes…

> Journalism serves the current public interest, not history

Thanks. I think my idea was a sort of "idealized journalism". I'll accept your correction.

> The scope of the public interest isn't limited to crimes, that's a ludicrous idea.

I didn't say that. If you can think of another reason for publishing specific activities of private individuals from years ago that serves the public interest—as we agree is journalism's purpose—by all means share it. I could only think of one reason; perhaps there are others.

Generally, naming and shaming private individuals for specific non-criminal acts in the past does not serve the public interest; that's my point. The only interest it serves is that of the mob, or that of a totalitarian government, both of which we will find it harder to avoid the more we tolerate this type of journalism. This is not how a healthy, free society behaves.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#75

Post by catalogia »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #41
catalogia wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a private person can be publicly shamed in the press 15 years from now for doing something that is completely normal and socially acceptable today This industry created the tools which made it feasible. Before social media, most people simply didn't have a public record of things they said years ago. This industry also created the platforms on which this sort of behavior flourishes. Journalists may have some bad ha…

Good point. But it takes a journalist with a specific purpose in mind, and a public that cares to be outraged in the first place about private people whose specific past behaviors have no bearing on history, to dig back into the past and bring such stuff out into the public eye, with specific names and dates attached.

I suspect such journalists have always existed and there's always been an appetite for bad journalism. Bad journalism certainly isn't new; for instance in the 19th century shitty newspapers started the Spanish-American War basically for shits and giggles. They were able to do that because much of the American public enthusiastically gobbled up the nonsense yellow journalists were publishing.

I think many of the tools the tech industry has created in past years, social media and link aggregators using content recommendation systems, have thrown fuel into the dumpster fire. These tools and systems of incentives have facilitated and encouraged shitty journalism. When the tech industry itself is then the victim of this, it's sort of karmic justice. Hoisted by their own petard, as it were. But all to often the victims have nothing to do with the tech industry. Most victims are, as you say, private people; technology has made private people vulnerable to unscrupulous journalists in a way that seems historically unprecedented.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#76

Post by catalogia »

ryanhuff wrote: post #69
product50 wrote: post #23

If ever there was a one sided article, it was this. Doesn't even talk about the nuances of the problems. Journalists are like how dare tech people are criticizing us - but it is totally ok to do it the other way round. The difference now though is, because of social media, prominent tech personalities have much bigger audiences. Sometimes I am thankful like services like Twitter and Facebook exists since these types…

If I took what Facebook presents to me through my feed as a news source to influence my POV, I might believe that Obama is a secret Muslim, or that Trump was done away with years ago, and is instead an alien, or that Helen Hunt, the actress, is involved in international child trafficking, or perhaps that COVID-19 was put in place to control the world's population. In my experience, all Facebook does is reveal and fee…

It's not like the NYTs doesn't have a history of spreading unfounded 'conspiracy theories' too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_aluminum_tubes#September...

In terms of damage done to society, I think all the examples you list combined still pale in comparison to that single example.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#77

Post by pmorici »

dragonwriter wrote: post #65
pmorici wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what the OP said. Even the US constitution recognizes that Ex post facto laws are bad and specifically prohibits their passage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law#United_State...

> Even the US constitution recognizes that Ex post facto laws are bad and specifically prohibits their passage. Ex post facto is a term of art in criminal law; and the prohibition has everything to do with the type of consequences that are uniquely applied in the criminal context. It does not reflect a general rule that there is no liability for wrongs determined after-the-fact, but is a special exception to the gene…

Yes, but it is a recognition that there is a certain general unfairness to holding someone to account for something which society found perfectly fine at the time it took place only to be made wrong after the fact.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#78

Post by renewiltord »

ardy42 wrote: post #71
renewiltord wrote: post #40

The kind of journalism that these people do is dead as a professional information-delivery job because it is outcompeted by obsessive bloggers since the advent of the ubiquitous Internet. It is an entertainment business and behaves like an entertainment business, which means that the participants are incentivized to create buzz, etc. If your news sources are primarily these, then you’re missing out on a lot of action…

> The kind of journalism that these people do is dead as a professional information-delivery job because it is outcompeted by obsessive bloggers since the advent of the ubiquitous Internet. Eh, not so much. That's not much different than saying that journalism has been out-competed by the Facebook News Feed. It might be true that they've "outcompeted" journalism by pulling the rug out from under its revenue model, bu…

In the following sentence from my original post, I intended for the (now) highlighted section to have semantic significance:

> he kind of journalism that these people do

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#79

Post by bluntfang »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #74
dragonwriter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalism’s purpose is to report current and past events that have a bearing on history — both political and social. No, it's not. Journalism serves the current public interest, not history, except insofar as the latter serves the former. > You may not want to work with a former KKK member, but that doesn’t mean the press (or anyone) has any business exposing their sins in public, unless there are specific crimes…

> Journalism serves the current public interest, not history Thanks. I think my idea was a sort of "idealized journalism". I'll accept your correction. > The scope of the public interest isn't limited to crimes, that's a ludicrous idea. I didn't say that. If you can think of another reason for publishing specific activities of private individuals from years ago that serves the public interest —as we agree is journali…

>If you can think of another reason for publishing specific activities of private individuals from years ago that serves the public interest

Donald Trump's history of sexual harassment. I don't want a womanizer to be President, even if it was socially acceptable to do a bunch of coke and fuck your EA or teenagers at the time.

Re: Silicon Valley Elite Discuss Journalists Having Too Much Power in Private App

#80

Post by TimTheTinker »

bluntfang wrote: post #79
TimTheTinker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalism serves the current public interest, not history Thanks. I think my idea was a sort of "idealized journalism". I'll accept your correction. > The scope of the public interest isn't limited to crimes, that's a ludicrous idea. I didn't say that. If you can think of another reason for publishing specific activities of private individuals from years ago that serves the public interest —as we agree is journali…

>If you can think of another reason for publishing specific activities of private individuals from years ago that serves the public interest Donald Trump's history of sexual harassment. I don't want a womanizer to be President, even if it was socially acceptable to do a bunch of coke and fuck your EA or teenagers at the time.

Donald Trump is a public figure. My above points concern private individuals.
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