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Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

nytimes.com

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Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#241

Post by tablespoon »

leereeves wrote: post #198
everdrive wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although a lot of the mistrust of mainstream news is well earned, there is also an explosion of doubt and misinformation these days. (How many stories these days are a media story with a strawman? "You'll never believe what [publication] is saying!") The NY Times actually does a lot of good journalism these days. At least at the level of the individual story and/or writer. But people have become so cynical or mistrus…

> The NY Times actually does a lot of good journalism these days. At least the level of the individual story and/or writer. And what about the level above that? The level of giving readers an accurate picture of the world, not distorted by selective editing? The most effective misinformation tells the truth, but not the whole truth.

>> The NY Times actually does a lot of good journalism these days. At least the level of the individual story and/or writer.

> And what about the level above that? The level of giving readers an accurate picture of the world, not distorted by selective editing?

All editing is selective, that's pretty much definitional.

I think you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The alternative to the NY Times (and similar publications) isn't some ideal publication that gives an accurate picture without distortion, it's talk radio and other opinionated sources that give pictures that are even more distorted.

The NY Times is like a plate of food with a fly in it. There are salesmen out there that spend a lot of time talking about the fly, reminding you how gross it is and how bad they must be for it to get there, etc. Then they'll offer a plate of dogshit as a substitute, and distressingly a lot of people will take it because they've been successfully fixated on that damn fly.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#242

Post by sandworm101 »

cableshaft wrote: post #112
sandworm101 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's insanely hard to avoid that main stream media content Really? I spend a not-small amount of time online. I'm typing this at work right now. But I don't feel any pull to celeb culture whatsoever. Then again, I do not use facebook/twitter/Instagram. I watch YouTube but haven't ever commented or liked a video. The only real internet "drama" I am following currently is the Blizzard-Activision thing, and then only…

Subnautica is amazing. The natural unease in exploring the depths of an ocean is something I didn't realize I would love until I finally got that game a few months ago. Also constructing your base in a modular way is good fun as well.

Subnautica 1 yes. Subnautica 2 (below zero) is far less epic. The world is smaller and denser. There aren't the big open spaces, much less deep water. It's prettier and has some better features here and there, but lacks the majesty of the original.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#243

Post by JCVI-syn10 »

grumblenum wrote: post #13
ameminator wrote: post #2

Ironic that this is from the New York Times, which has (in)famously had several years of poor or biased reporting.

In 2005 I was in a college dorm that provided the NYT in a common area. I picked up one and the first article I read was a column about Hurricane Katrina. The author interviewed a history professor who bewailed the failings of the president and the United States and how this was "worse than Antitem". In other words the esteemed Grey Lady interviewed an "expert" whose expertise has nothing to do with meteorology or di…

> the first article I read was a column

A column is a personal opinion piece, not a news story.

> how this was "worse than Antitem [sic]"

I can't find any columns that mention Antietam from NYT published in 2005. Is there any reason to believe what you're describing actually happened?

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#244

Post by leereeves »

tablespoon wrote: post #241
leereeves wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NY Times actually does a lot of good journalism these days. At least the level of the individual story and/or writer. And what about the level above that? The level of giving readers an accurate picture of the world, not distorted by selective editing? The most effective misinformation tells the truth, but not the whole truth.

>> The NY Times actually does a lot of good journalism these days. At least the level of the individual story and/or writer. > And what about the level above that? The level of giving readers an accurate picture of the world, not distorted by selective editing? All editing is selective, that's pretty much definitional. I think you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The alternative to the NY Times (and s…

A better alternative is not trusting any of them. Realize that they're all distorting the truth, and yet also sharing a part of the truth, and dig deeper.

Uncritical acceptance of any source leads to mistakes like believing the Steele dossier and claims about collusion between Trump and Russia, whose claims even the NY Times itself now admits "have never materialized or have been proved false".[1]

That was one of the biggest pieces of disinformation in the last five years, and the NY Times pushed it wholeheartedly for many years. Their mistake here is summarized well in their own article:

> To learn from the dossier episode, news organizations would have to examine their ties to private intelligence agents, including why they so often granted them anonymity. But as long as the media allows private spies to set the rules, journalists and the public will continue to lose.

1: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/15/business/media/spooked-pr...

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#245

Post by commandlinefan »

grumblenum wrote: post #13
ameminator wrote: post #2

Ironic that this is from the New York Times, which has (in)famously had several years of poor or biased reporting.

In 2005 I was in a college dorm that provided the NYT in a common area. I picked up one and the first article I read was a column about Hurricane Katrina. The author interviewed a history professor who bewailed the failings of the president and the United States and how this was "worse than Antitem". In other words the esteemed Grey Lady interviewed an "expert" whose expertise has nothing to do with meteorology or di…

> worse than Antitem

Does that refer to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antietam? I can't even put together the comparison.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#246

Post by adolph »

shadowgovt wrote: post #222
adolph wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYT prints some retractions and corrections and also changes stories they have published without any notice. Times editors have thus far rejected appeals to flag readers when stories are reworked, unless it’s a correction. They argue that making such edits are a routine part of digital publishing — you edit a piece, publish it, then report more or add more context, then republish it again, on through the news cycle.…

Version control on digital news stories would be nice to have, but I can't disagree with their thinking on the topic. Putting the most up-to-date version forward is standard digital publishing protocol.

Clearly "standard digital publishing protocol" isn't something that can be trusted.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#247

Post by no-dr-onboard »

908B64B197 wrote: post #226
uses wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to make the same post for every nytimes article? Like yeah I guess we can dismiss the entire investigative and reporting output of the nytimes because of a troll post from a dumpster tier brietbart wannabe about how the nytimes cleaned up its advertising business? The most frightening thing is that views like this are the ultimate goal of the type of propaganda we're seeing. Convincing you of fact X is…

That's exactly the response the CCP would want to appear right below that comment. What a coincidence!

That's exactly the response the CCP would want you to think that they would post right below that comment.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#248

Post by cableshaft »

sandworm101 wrote: post #242
cableshaft wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subnautica is amazing. The natural unease in exploring the depths of an ocean is something I didn't realize I would love until I finally got that game a few months ago. Also constructing your base in a modular way is good fun as well.

Subnautica 1 yes. Subnautica 2 (below zero) is far less epic. The world is smaller and denser. There aren't the big open spaces, much less deep water. It's prettier and has some better features here and there, but lacks the majesty of the original.

That's unfortunate. I hadn't picked it up yet, still working through the first one.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#249

Post by tacocataco »

dj_gitmo wrote: post #131

IMO most of the problems with news stem from how it is funded. Advertising and back-room deals are not a good way to fund journalism. Cable news producers get ratings updates every 5 minutes and adjust their content according to what keeps people watching.

Wasn't the news part of the deal to broadcast? They get to broadcast, we get news.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#250

Post by 84thryu »

refurb wrote: post #81
Lendal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story is about shady companies funded by government propaganda agencies around the world, and which cease operating as soon as you start investigating them. The New York Times has been doing business continuously since 1851, is one of the cornerstones of democracy, a recognized leader in journalism schools across the globe, and to this day regularly fires journalists who are caught lying in a story. Anyone is fr…

No. The story is about disinformation. Whether someone does it for money or ideology doesn’t matter, lies are lies and the NYTimes is not an innocent party here. They were a major driver of the Iraq WMD theory and thus the Iraq War if you want one solid example.

That is a "one solid example", it is so. It was a bad practice of them. Does there have ANY others? This one example gets pulled out every time the NYT is mention and never have I seen other, not any.
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