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What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

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Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#121
post #78
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah it's a questionable claim for sure. This was a widely cited poll that asserted for the first time ever, the majority of Americans mistrust the mainstream media: https://www.axios.com/media-trust-crisis-2bf0ec1c-00c0-4901-... You'll note that trust varies widely by political party, with 18% of Republicans trusting the media vs 57% of Democrats. So the post in the op seems to equate "educated" with "democrat" perh…

> This was a widely cited poll that asserted for the first time ever, the majority of Americans mistrust the mainstream media A poll released by the largest PR firm in the world[0], famous for their work with Walmart, GEO Group, Keystone XL, etc. Why would the creators of "Working Families for Walmart" ever try to manufacture consent? One wonders. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelman_(firm)

Manufacturing Consent is a book that had a big impact on how I perceive media, and I think it's wise to examine who's saying something and what their motives are, but I don't totally understand what you're saying. What's their motive here? I can't see a link between the narrative that people distrust media and their pr work for a bunch of gross corporations.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#123
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a widely cited poll that asserted for the first time ever, the majority of Americans mistrust the mainstream media A poll released by the largest PR firm in the world[0], famous for their work with Walmart, GEO Group, Keystone XL, etc. Why would the creators of "Working Families for Walmart" ever try to manufacture consent? One wonders. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelman_(firm)

Reader distrusts media poll showing high distrust in media.

and more importantly... reader shows obvious bias against Walmart... I wonder if he works for Target?

(Lesson: Random idiots on the idiot yelling at each other about who can't be trusted pushing "conspiracy theories" about "The Wallsmart" pushing polls and people who don't believe the polls and etc etc etc. Yes... I'm one of those random idiots.)

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly I just had an unrelated discussion on goodreads about that. The first mentioned author of the NYT article is supposedly a cybersecurity expert. The article lacked any evidence and called the company russian and obscure, they edited that but it’s still on archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20210106195835/https://www.nytim... I left a goodreads comment on the NYT authors latest cybersecurity book cal…

This makes me wonder, 3 branches of government exist to balance each other out. Journalism stands on its own, what’s the counter balance to journalism?

Journalism, "the 4th estate", in the past was used to go after the powerful but it has recently become the power.

It's a concerning change and I don't see it getting better. Maybe it's "corporate journalism" that is problematic.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#125

>Most educated people believe that premier news outlets are inherently trustworthy. The switch from printed to online distribution changed the game completely. If you are selling printed copies, you are physically limited in how much text you can cram into a single issue. So, publishers (in non-yellow segments) compete on the ability to create well-researched informative content that will be relevant to a large group…

I dont think this exactly applies to the NYT and the New Yorker which are subscriptions based.

I do think subscription based journalism can be just as pernicious. The most profitable route now is to find a niche group and produce content that they want. In general people "want" the objective truth, but its so much more tantalizing when it's spun to confirm your biases. There's likely a point where people will pay to get 90% of the truth and 10% confirmation bias, and if that's the most profitable route pubishers are going to report in that way (hence the left lean of NYT in particular, and right lean of other publications).

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#126
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surprised you that MSNBC, NYT, and NPR have primarily left-leaning audiences? Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC. If you asked the surveyed Republicans how much they trust Fox News specifically , I’m sure the stats would be a mirror image. Similarly, democrats trust a news industry which, outlet-for-outlet, is more aligned with what they want to hear. After all, it’s never “our…

> After all, it’s never “our” news we mistrust, it’s the other guys! You imply this is some kind of hypocrisy or other character flaw, but this will always be true when there's uncertainty. If someone holds the same prior beliefs as you, it is rational to trust them more. Otherwise you would be assuming your own beliefs are wrong which makes no sense by definition. Of course media outlets tend to go beyond just filli…

Only to the extent that “bias” is a character flaw. I understand the nature of it, but it is certainly a liability when after the “truth”.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#127
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is misleading about saying Trump “small personal financial interest”? That seems pretty clear cut and truthful.

Imagine that Alice's net worth is an even billion dollars. Alice buys a tiny stake, $1000 or so, in ACME Industries. This is financially immaterial to Alice. It's 0.0001% of her net worth. But the purchase gives her access to all of the information which must be legally shared with investors, and is a common way investors keep tabs on publicly-traded companies. Now, imagine that Bob's net worth is $10,000. Alice's in…

>But the purchase gives her access to all of the information which must be legally shared with investors...publicly-traded companies.

Publicly traded companies must share this information with the public.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#128
post #127
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine that Alice's net worth is an even billion dollars. Alice buys a tiny stake, $1000 or so, in ACME Industries. This is financially immaterial to Alice. It's 0.0001% of her net worth. But the purchase gives her access to all of the information which must be legally shared with investors, and is a common way investors keep tabs on publicly-traded companies. Now, imagine that Bob's net worth is $10,000. Alice's in…

>But the purchase gives her access to all of the information which must be legally shared with investors...publicly-traded companies. Publicly traded companies must share this information with the public.

Not all of it. As a shareholder, you get access to shareholder meetings (not public), can vote on certain issues raised by the board, etc.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#129
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah it's a questionable claim for sure. This was a widely cited poll that asserted for the first time ever, the majority of Americans mistrust the mainstream media: https://www.axios.com/media-trust-crisis-2bf0ec1c-00c0-4901-... You'll note that trust varies widely by political party, with 18% of Republicans trusting the media vs 57% of Democrats. So the post in the op seems to equate "educated" with "democrat" perh…

> if the media outlets weren't increasingly becoming echo chambers. This conclusion doesn't stand up. If the most popular network skews 93% republican, the alternatives are going to skew democrat regardless of how balanced they are.

That doesn't make sense.

If one block is 93% blue, the other blocks are going to be more red than blue regardless of how balanced they are.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#130

If you are student of grammar and journalism, do your self a favor and follow @nyttypos. I was stunned by the large number of mistakes that professional journalists make, that their editors miss, and that they refuse to correct. Here is an article about @nyttypos and his/her obsession... https://www.theringer.com/2020/8/18/21372181/nytimes-typo-tw...

I find that the NY Post has a better grasp of written copy - their writers are often cleverer and a cut above the Times even though they're writing for a worse paper.
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