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Statement on New York Times Article

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Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#141

Post by rjbwork »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #112

The motivations of the hit piece seem extremely petty to me - they wanted to do an article about how he was an early proponent of mask wearing which I guess everyone agrees now is a good thing (is it like being prematurely anti-fascist or something) and they wanted to use his real name and he didn't want that, instead of saying ok, they said we'll do it anyway, he made it difficult for them to do that, later he start…

That does seem to be an accurate summary of the situation. The NYT is nothing but a rag these days. I literally value BuzzfeedNews and Vice above the NYT's "journalism", which is honestly just sad. I grew up reading NYT from the time I was maybe 8 or 9. It's pathetic how far they've fallen.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#142

Post by Udik »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #95

Seriously, WTF is going on with NYT. I think something has seriously gone off the deep end with their newsroom, but I feel like it must be so culturally ingrained in their newsroom now that even questioning some basic assumptions will get one vilified as a racist or sexist. One of the most recent examples that really struck me was NYT's article about why they decided to capitalize Black, but not White, in their paper…

> One of the most recent examples that really struck me was NYT's article about why they decided to capitalize Black, but not White, in their paper

Interesting also that the overwhelming majority of the readers who commented on the article itself seem to find it pure nonsense. It's somewhat telling when a newspaper stubbornly keeps serving its readers one specific opinion which they keep refusing to subscribe to. You would expect a news outlet to publish a diversity of opinions centered around their readership's average- roughly half of the readers will be challenged every time. But what's the point in consistently presenting an opinion all your readership rejects? Who are you serving exactly?

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#143

Post by linspace »

konjin wrote: post #136
linspace wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the link to the NYT article. I completely agree with your reading. Politicians have known forever that sometimes is more important to control what the conversation is about that what you actually say and traditional media is the way you control the conversation. But they have lost their monopoly. I'm not comfortable with the monopoly being transferred to big tech companies by the way which are usually t…

Here's that time where the legacy media threatened to doxx someone if they made memes they didn't like again: >CNN is not publishing "HanA*holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said h…

If some lawyer is reading this I would love to know what it takes for an extortion to become a criminal offense.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#144

Post by sunpar »

konjin wrote: post #136
linspace wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the link to the NYT article. I completely agree with your reading. Politicians have known forever that sometimes is more important to control what the conversation is about that what you actually say and traditional media is the way you control the conversation. But they have lost their monopoly. I'm not comfortable with the monopoly being transferred to big tech companies by the way which are usually t…

Here's that time where the legacy media threatened to doxx someone if they made memes they didn't like again: >CNN is not publishing "HanA*holeSolo's" name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said h…

I don’t understand why people believe that anonymity is a right guaranteed to all people making content on the internet.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#146

Post by Hasu »

eatplayrove wrote: post #138
ALittleLight wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A while back I mentioned to my mother that I had been to a "reddit meet up" and my mother, predictably, had never heard of reddit. Later, reddit made the news, I forget exactly what for, but in was the category of harboring child pornographers, racists, or nude celebrity photos. What I did remember is hoping my mother didn't see this news article and conclude that I was out meeting with racist pedophiles. The thing i…

I fully understand your point re reddit, but I think a single person's blog is different than that. A blog is like a book and reddit is like a bookstore if you will, if you go to a bookstore selling a book that racists read that is not concerning to me (wrongly concerning to your mom as you said), but if you bought the book in question (even if non/anti-racists read it too) I would be concerned if I were your mother…

This seems pretty crazy to me - you're saying that if I happen to enjoy anything that also happens to be enjoyed by racists/sexists, you would be concerned? Guess what? Racists and sexists like Harry Potter, and Star Wars, and Marvel movies, and Coca-Cola, and everything else that people who aren't racists and sexists like. I guarantee that you enjoy many, many things that are also enjoyed by people who have detestable beliefs, because people with detestable beliefs sometimes like things that have nothing to do with those detestable beliefs. Racists don't spend all their time reading Mein Kampf and watching Birth of a Nation, they also read the same books you read, watch the same movies and television shows you watch, and, yes, read the same blogs you read.

If the blog has sexist/racist content that attracts sexists and racists, sure, that's a problem, but if the blog had such content, the NYT article wouldn't have resorted to pointing out the commenters, they would have linked the content.

> As to the feminism issue, in the full context, he criticizes feminism with respect to specific points and texts from feminists (which he is 100% entitled to), but then ends with the sentence in question that to me whichever angle you look at it from says, feminism and pure evil are not too distant. As I noted, he could have backed away from the statement easily by saying his statement is wrong (if he thinks so), but claiming it's out of context is dishonest and a diversion.

Specifically, in context, he said "People who go out of their way to be horrifically mean to other people who are pretty unfortunate and unhappy and don't understand why, just for asking why, are pretty much pure evil", it wasn't an attack on all feminists ever, it was an attack on people who he specifically thinks are doing something extremely terrible. That's the context.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#147

Post by yesenadam »

graeme wrote: post #28
donthitme wrote: post #17

Reading the NYT piece was mortifying.[1] They were my primary source of all things news and then published this strange hit that's just... off base. They were the real news that was called fake news in a ridiculous/laughable sort of way. But it just doesn't jive. How can a reliable news source write an article like that? Why throw your reputation down the toilet for what seems like a grudge? [1] https://www.nytimes.c…

The Times has a long history. There was the WMD scandal where Judith Miller credulously wrote about the Bush administration’s lies on Iraq. Then in the 2016 election the NYT had a front page spread implying major scandal regarding Clinton’s emails. This probably cost Clinton the election. https://www.vox.com/2017/12/7/16747712/study-media-2016-elec... I could come up with more examples but the times have a very clear…

> The Times has a long history.

Some of it is featured in Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992)

"The film presents and illustrates Chomsky and Herman's propaganda model thesis that corporate media, as profit-driven institutions, tend to serve and further the agendas and interests of dominant, elite groups in the society. A centerpiece of the film is a long examination of the history of The New York Times' coverage of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which Chomsky says exemplifies the media's unwillingness to criticize an ally of the elite."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent_(film)

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#148

Post by nanna »

twicetwice wrote: post #3

A great response, in my opinion. Succinctly and effectively points out what was wrong with the NYT article, then tries to move on. Somewhat more of a sober tone than Scott's typical writing, but still with a dash of his typical wit: > I don’t want to accuse the New York Times of lying about me, exactly, but if they were truthful, it was in the same way as that famous movie review which describes the Wizard of Oz as:…

> WebMD is the Internet's most important source of medical information. [WebMD, And The Tragedy Of Legible Expertise"]

I had no idea WebMD was taken this seriously. Can I recommend to HNers especially across the pond to use the excellent NHS.UK instead, for level-headed and concise medical info.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#149

Post by ALittleLight »

eatplayrove wrote: post #138
ALittleLight wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A while back I mentioned to my mother that I had been to a "reddit meet up" and my mother, predictably, had never heard of reddit. Later, reddit made the news, I forget exactly what for, but in was the category of harboring child pornographers, racists, or nude celebrity photos. What I did remember is hoping my mother didn't see this news article and conclude that I was out meeting with racist pedophiles. The thing i…

I fully understand your point re reddit, but I think a single person's blog is different than that. A blog is like a book and reddit is like a bookstore if you will, if you go to a bookstore selling a book that racists read that is not concerning to me (wrongly concerning to your mom as you said), but if you bought the book in question (even if non/anti-racists read it too) I would be concerned if I were your mother…

Regarding the difference between a blog and reddit I would say that the comment section harbors people with many different views. Some of the comments may be objectionable (again: I didn't see examples) but so what? That's got to be true of everywhere with a comments section. Why make that a focus?

You write "if the claim is indeed true that racists/sexists think the blog is great" - but this isn't even the kind of thing that could be true. Imagine how you would prove this claim, do you go to the National Association of Racists and ask for their stance on SSC? Is there a poll of racists and their opinion on niche blogs somewhere?

"Racists" is ill defined by itself. People aren't racist or not the way they are right or left handed. Racism is a spectrum and much of it is debatable and nuanced and affected by context and all that. This is like saying "Some number of an undefined group like something. Prove me wrong." That's not a legitimate claim and there is no need to try and rebut it.

I have no doubt that some racists like the blog and other racists don't like it. Do more racists (proportionally) like and read SSC or the NYT? I don't think you can answer that.

Regarding the feminist issue I'll have to go back and read that post before writing more.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#150

Post by sunpar »

konjin wrote: post #137
astrange wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Against murderism" was the last time it came up, I think? In context I believe it was supposed to be anti-anti-Trumpism, or at least that you should talk to Trumpists more rather than deplatform them. The reason I don't remember is that the effect of reading his essays is that they're so long you forget why he wrote them and what you were thinking before you started it.

>The reason I don't remember is that the effect of reading his essays is that they're so long you forget why he wrote them and what you were thinking before you started it. Honest question: how do you read books if a 10k word article is too long?

I read many books but skip many long blog entries. Blogs tend to be in sore need of editing, and most the books that make it to print are in general far higher quality. The main strength blogs have to me are time to print, which makes them more “real time” than books.
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