Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Resignation Letter

bariweiss.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 716 posts

Re: Resignation Letter

#601

Post by acituan »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #563
acituan wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely what your neighbor did is crucial, but it is not a waterfall process. The problem space of "gathering facts" is virtually infinite, means relevance decisions has to start while deciding on what to gather more facts on. It is an iterative process that says "based on these facts we found, we investigated for these further facts and here why it all was important to promote them to public attention".

Absolutely, but my point is the original claim of "journalism is not our fact gathering process" is just wrong. Sure, there's a frame problem in journalism just as much as there is in AI, and sure, journalists play a (possibly outsized) role in finding contemporary suboptimal solutions for it. But even with that being the case, somebody has to go out and get information for us to talk about, argue about, rage about,…

> my point is the original claim of "journalism is not our fact gathering process" is just wrong.

Allow me to reword; facts are necessary but not at all sufficient to constitute journalism, nor journalism can claim monopoly on fact gathering. E.g. we have other, more formal, fact gathering processes such as science or court of law, which cannot be substituted with journalism, damages of which we see to the extent it tries to.

The firehose of twitter, youtube etc feeds already give us facts to talk about, argue about, rage about, call for more information about. And we are not in better shape for it. We cannot sufficiently convert those facts into sense. Nor those facts are always the ones we should be interested in.

That's why it's critical not to reduce journalism to fact gathering.

Re: Resignation Letter

#602

Post by RonanTheGrey »

orwin wrote: post #354
eric_b wrote: post #211

The "orthodoxy" the author writes about is real. I am a skeptic and cynic by nature. In my experience "common wisdom" is usually anything but. In software and technology I've found when you eschew dogma and "best practices" you more often than not get better results. But, in 2020 you cannot question or be skeptical of the "progressive" agenda. Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a…

> But, in 2020 you cannot question or be skeptical of the "progressive" agenda. Merely hinting that you are not fully bought in will get you labeled as a racist, or even worse these days, a "Conservative". Is it really the case? Or is it a perception you have? I've become less and less liberal the past three months, for multiple reasons, and at least in my liberal bubble, i did not face any backlash.

I guard my opinions very carefully, to the point one would be hard pressed to identify what political ideology I identify with (largely because I don't identify with any of them).

The other day on Twitter when the couple pointing guns at the protesters in Kentucky issue was trending, someone posited "I wonder what happens to people who don't have guns". So I posted a video of a couple who were dragged out of their shop and beaten, on video, and their shop destroyed.

I posted no words, no commentary, simply linked the video that is a real example of the answer to that question - and got called a racist in response.

People are actively seeking reasons to hate, these days, and for someone like me for whom the entire exercise seems silly, all I can do is sit back and stop participating.

Re: Resignation Letter

#603

Post by throwaway894345 »

bsder wrote: post #593
istjohn wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, her complaint is that there is an orthodoxy at all, instead of openness to debate and willingness to consider divergent opinions. If you're going to make the case that her stated complaints are made in bad faith, you need to bring some evidence to bear, or you're just indulging in ad hominem name-calling.

Debate only works if one side isn't arguing in bad faith. We should simply allow political stances that have real harm to simply run amok with "debate"? That got us 140,000 dead. Yeah, I'm kinda done with the "debate" idea. It's time to bring "consequence" to people's political stances. The only reason people are bitching about "cancel culture" is that they finally have to face some consequence for their political st…

> We should simply allow political stances that have real harm to simply run amok with "debate"? Yeah, I'm kinda done with the "debate" idea. It's time to bring "consequence" to people's political stances.

At least you're open about your opposition to free speech. That's something I guess... In your mind, are your political cohorts always going to wield the power to cancel or can you imagine a world in which the far right wing holds that power and persecutes you and yours for your views based on the same arguments you make above? In the latter case, do you think you would hold to your views on free speech? Why or why not?

Re: Resignation Letter

#604

Post by bJGVygG7MQVF8c »

AxiomCloNe wrote: post #579
JeremyNT wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have 1,600 journalists last year that were sent to 150 countries [1]. What other organization is doing anything like that effort to gather facts around the world? Reuters [0], for one, which boasts "2500 journalists and 600 photojournalists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters A key thing to understand about the editorial / news hybrids like the NYT, CNN, or Fox News is that they're selling multiple product…

what are some of these outlets you know of? I've been trying to ironclad my news sources after getting into Chomsky recently but have only found Democracy Now! and Novara media, as well as a couple other small speciality podcasts that seem potentially good. Would appreciate pointers.

If you like Chomsky check out What's Left (podcast) if you haven't yet. It's very good and will only deepen your skepticism of the corporate press.

Re: Resignation Letter

#605

Post by tootie »

ignoramceisblis wrote: post #590
tootie wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not No True Scotsman. It's fact. The FBI did not pin any illegal activity on antifa. Cotton had absolutely no evidence to back his claim. While I obviously don't know everyone who participated in looting, in NYC where I live the looters were nowhere near the organized protests. https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-no-intelligence-antifa-w...

First, reporting a lack of intelligence that directly links those actions to Antifa, especially only a week after the first protest, does not mean there was no direct link. But have a counterpoint, from some people who already had some intelligence: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/law-enfo... > "U.S. police officials said they are examining both local and out-of-state actors focused on creating da…

It was well known that protestors were getting attacked by police and that scouts were keeping an eye on police isn't a bad thing. Nor are medical stations. Police were brutalizing protestors. There's no proof these people were scouting for looters. In fact the article says the looting happened in Soho and the UES where the high end stores were. Protests weren't happenings in those neighborhoods. Graffiti isn't looting.

No one has proven anything criminal was organized and Tom Cotton sure as hell didn't have proof before he called for military intervention against a made up enemy.

Re: Resignation Letter

#606

Post by sukilot »

AxiomCloNe wrote: post #579
JeremyNT wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have 1,600 journalists last year that were sent to 150 countries [1]. What other organization is doing anything like that effort to gather facts around the world? Reuters [0], for one, which boasts "2500 journalists and 600 photojournalists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters A key thing to understand about the editorial / news hybrids like the NYT, CNN, or Fox News is that they're selling multiple product…

what are some of these outlets you know of? I've been trying to ironclad my news sources after getting into Chomsky recently but have only found Democracy Now! and Novara media, as well as a couple other small speciality podcasts that seem potentially good. Would appreciate pointers.

Reuters and frankly the websites of the local TV stations (Sinclair notwithstanding). Al Jazeera, mostly.

ProPublica is OK but falling from grace as it leans harder into manipulating heartstrings.

Re: Resignation Letter

#607

Post by throwaway894345 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #492
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of us who think that the "Paradox of Tolerance" is mistaken, rather than truth. It may sound reasonable, but it is used in practice to define ideas we don't like as intolerant, and then exclude those who hold those ideas. If you look around, those on the left aren't showing themselves to be paragons of tolerance. They are nearly as narrow-minded as the right, just with different in-groups and out-gro…

[flagged]

It sounds like you're making a semantic argument. To you "progressives" by definition adhere to a liberal ethos (perhaps even that any who adhere to a certain liberal ethos are also 'progressives'), ergo they can't be the ones doing the (inherently illiberal) cancelling. Others are observing that the group that identifies as (and is commonly known as) 'progressives' seem to be practicing or defending cancellation.

As is often the case with semantic arguments, it's probably not very useful to debate terms, and you're probably just better off to say "cancelling is abhorrent and anyone who does it deserves criticism and condemnation irrespective of their 'tribe'" and move on.

Re: Resignation Letter

#608

Post by yahnu »

I used to be a skeptic of MSM in general but started reading/following NYT and some other major news outlets about an year ago to challenge my own mindset.

From what I have seen, to my surprise, the NYT's opinion section does encompass diverse viewpoints and reports in general are neutral in tone!

Any criticism I have seen of NYT are either nitpicking (example: headline being too moderate) or taking an incident that is outlier and generalising it (example: Editor of opinion section didn't read a controversial opinion piece by a politician before publishing and resigned over the backlash. Instead of viewing it as an one-off incident, it was criticized as NYT not tolerant of diverse opinions).

NYT is not perfect (who else is?) but it is still one of the best organization with highest standards of journalism I have seen.

Re: Resignation Letter

#609

Post by sukilot »

bgorman wrote: post #416
jrumbut wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could award you several upvotes for answering my question. I really like FT myself. I am not in business so much but I think business news sources often get at a lot of interesting angles that others miss.

Absolutely, most journalists do not understand basic quantitative reasoning or economic principles. For example, I read a BBC article a while back about a sand shortage in India. It turns out the government imposed a price-ceiling, and there was no shortage at all (sand was available in the black market) - there was just a shortage at the government mandated price point. Any economics 101 student can tell you that if…

"Econ 101" is pejorative term for making simplistic proclamations that ignore the complexities of a situation.

Re: Resignation Letter

#610

Post by Taikonerd »

sillypuddy wrote: post #407
jrumbut wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have 1,600 journalists last year that were sent to 150 countries [1]. What other organization is doing anything like that effort to gather facts around the world? Who is doing more collective discovery (and making it accessible to the public at a price an average person can afford)? I can only think of a handful of organizations that are serious candidates (Reuters? The BBC? Wikipedia?). Weird puff pieces, drama…

Bloomberg had 2,300 editors and reporters in 72 countries in 2010. The Wall Street Journal had 2,000 journalists in 85 news bureaus across 51 countries in 2012.

The WSJ and Bloomberg are OK, although they tend to have business-heavy coverage.

I feel like there's a real market opening here, for a centrist, general-interest newspaper. (Suggested slogan: "Like the NYT Was 20 Years Ago.")

Post reply on HN