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The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

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Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#31

Post by mcphage »

fullshark wrote: post #11
mikkergp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the journalists I've seen have expressed just the oppossite, an ease with leaving twitter if these get enacted, what makes you say that " A lot of journalists' entire self worth seems wrapped up in their twitter audience frankly."

Ehh this is all so vague, both Yglesias's original thread and my disagreement with it, and I"m not sure it's benefited from getting specific. Who cares if I find some random tweets supporting my point, I'm sure you can find counter tweets. This ironically is the problem with a lot of modern journalism in a nutshell, tweet hunting to support narratives. In any case my opinion is that a lot of journalists (at least the…

So you read that tweet, but you think it is support of blue checks? Like, you think that tweet indicates the author thinks blue tweets are important and valuable?

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#32

Post by mcphage »

ars wrote: post #29
mikkergp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the journalists I've seen have expressed just the oppossite, an ease with leaving twitter if these get enacted, what makes you say that " A lot of journalists' entire self worth seems wrapped up in their twitter audience frankly."

> an ease with leaving twitter if these get enacted I'll believe that when journalists stop writing articles with unnamed sources, that are based on random twitter posts.

They could always fall back to “people are saying…”

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#33

Post by _zgx0 »

ForrestN wrote: post #12
_zgx0 wrote: post #2

>Instead of covering the [tech] industry with a business press lens or a consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair. ... >Tech executives and investors mostly did not like this change, for understandable reasons. And I mostly agree with them on the merits. The author agrees - that the tech industry should not be subject to inv…

He's not saying that they shouldn't be subject to coverage "with an investigative lens." He's talking about the adversarial, negative tone of the coverage, relating to the tech industry primarily as full of bad actors rather than a power center worthy of investigation that also does some good things, say. I don't think Yglesias would say we shouldn't investigate these companies, but rather that we should paint a more…

He correctly identifies a fundamental difference between business/consumer reporting, which is often fawning regurgitations of PR materials made with limited due diligence and investigative reporting. I stand by my comment, it seems to me that he is saying the change from business/consumer to investigative was unwelcome and he agrees with that reaction.

I think investigative journalism should be fair, but I don't think someone investigating Alphabet has to present the good that the company does - that's the job of Alphabet's PR department. Fair journalism does not leave out relevant context but doesn't speak to unrelated "good" contributions.

Should an investigation into political corruption talk about what good that politician did? Maybe if its directly related to the corruption, but otherwise no.

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#34

Post by finexplained »

bpodgursky wrote: post #26
matthewdgreen wrote: post #21

"[The NYT] decided tech was a major power center that needed scrutiny and needed to be taken down a peg, and this style of coverage became very widespread and prominent in the industry ... the press should try to normalize coverage of the tech industry as just another business sector." The irony here is that a prominent member of the 'tech industry' (with enthusiastic support from other prominent tech industry lumina…

Tesla and SpaceX are not traditional members of the "tech" industry imo.

Elon Musk is a prominent member of the tech industry and of Silicon Valley history, dating back to the days of Zip2 and Paypal. It's just a fact.

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#35

Post by fullshark »

mcphage wrote: post #31
fullshark wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh this is all so vague, both Yglesias's original thread and my disagreement with it, and I"m not sure it's benefited from getting specific. Who cares if I find some random tweets supporting my point, I'm sure you can find counter tweets. This ironically is the problem with a lot of modern journalism in a nutshell, tweet hunting to support narratives. In any case my opinion is that a lot of journalists (at least the…

So you read that tweet, but you think it is support of blue checks? Like, you think that tweet indicates the author thinks blue tweets are important and valuable?

Like most status games, it's deeply uncool to seem like you care about them when you are completely obsessed with them.

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#36

Post by JamesianP »

_zgx0 wrote: post #33
ForrestN wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not saying that they shouldn't be subject to coverage "with an investigative lens." He's talking about the adversarial, negative tone of the coverage, relating to the tech industry primarily as full of bad actors rather than a power center worthy of investigation that also does some good things, say. I don't think Yglesias would say we shouldn't investigate these companies, but rather that we should paint a more…

He correctly identifies a fundamental difference between business/consumer reporting, which is often fawning regurgitations of PR materials made with limited due diligence and investigative reporting. I stand by my comment, it seems to me that he is saying the change from business/consumer to investigative was unwelcome and he agrees with that reaction. I think investigative journalism should be fair, but I don't thi…

Personally when I look at the tech section I want to hear what's new in technology (I guess you'd call this marketing), not politics and gossip about what some rich meathead said. Put politics in the politics section, and the gossip in the tabloids.

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#37

Post by pixl97 »

ForrestN wrote: post #12
_zgx0 wrote: post #2

>Instead of covering the [tech] industry with a business press lens or a consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair. ... >Tech executives and investors mostly did not like this change, for understandable reasons. And I mostly agree with them on the merits. The author agrees - that the tech industry should not be subject to inv…

He's not saying that they shouldn't be subject to coverage "with an investigative lens." He's talking about the adversarial, negative tone of the coverage, relating to the tech industry primarily as full of bad actors rather than a power center worthy of investigation that also does some good things, say. I don't think Yglesias would say we shouldn't investigate these companies, but rather that we should paint a more…

"XYZ corporation donated thousands of dollars to needy children this year as an example of an exemplary tech company.

In addition XYZ corp sold Iran social media tracking software allowing the government to ruthlessly execute the traitors that dare say negative things about the glorious leader

We offer XYZ the leaders in tech award" --NYT

Um, yea, have HR departments that tell everyone how damned good they are already. You could fill encyclopedias with the output every year. Meanwhile they aren't going to tell you how they do 50 bajillion means of tracking your wife to determine if she's pregnant in order to serve an ad to her first before their competitors (and offer the data to the state if requested).

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#38

Post by pixl97 »

JamesianP wrote: post #36
_zgx0 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He correctly identifies a fundamental difference between business/consumer reporting, which is often fawning regurgitations of PR materials made with limited due diligence and investigative reporting. I stand by my comment, it seems to me that he is saying the change from business/consumer to investigative was unwelcome and he agrees with that reaction. I think investigative journalism should be fair, but I don't thi…

Personally when I look at the tech section I want to hear what's new in technology (I guess you'd call this marketing), not politics and gossip about what some rich meathead said. Put politics in the politics section, and the gossip in the tabloids.

That boat sailed a long time ago. And while yes, there is a lot of interesting tech news out there, we've had tech companies become the largest corporations on the planet gobbling up every bit of information on every person, well it gets political really quick.

Re: The New York Times made a weird editorial decision with its tech coverage

#40

Post by nickthegreek »

noAnswer wrote: post #27
m0meni wrote: post #16

I feel like people are forgetting the real value of verification. If you aren't verified, someone will pretend to be you on Twitter. Prominent people aren't paying $8 to get a check, they're paying $8 to make sure they can't be easily impersonated, which I think is really worth it.

I would be surprised if they do any "verification" at all. If you are a paining member, you will get a special icon. That's it. I knew web forums that had that. Members that donated to the forum got a special status icon. It could get "trendy" and every one wants to show that they are part of the in-group. Having to pay in order to be save from impersonation sound like extortion though.

You are being downvoted, but the news just broke that this is true. No id verification will take place for the $8. Just a cc.
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