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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

#91

Post by astrange »

_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…

I don't think journalism is actually useful if the journalist is pure negative all the time; if you can't tell the difference between a journalist and a teenager with oppositional defiant disorder, why believe the story? And to investigate, they actually need good sources, but tech people who would be the sources aren't going to talk to an unfriendly uninformed reporter.

Although in this case, the NYT wasn't doing "investigative journalism", Matt is talking about a literal actual editorial mandate to write negative stories.

https://twitter.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192

I think the one I remember is when they wrote a story about LinkedIn doing unauthorized human experiments on the newsfeed, by which they meant A/B tests.

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

#92

Post by astrange »

smeagull wrote: post #89
WillPostForFood wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said that the tech industry should not be subject to investigative coverage? ! Yglesias actually said: And the press should try to normalize coverage of the tech industry as just another business sector. Which would include investigative coverage when appropriate.

Fawning is typical of media coverage of most business sectors.

Don't think mining and oil and gas really get fawning reviews, or the local pizza place.

Or the most expensive restaurant in NYC: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/dining/pete-wells-per-se-...

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

#93

Post by kgwgk »

froh wrote: post #69
LAC-Tech wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech now is the most wealthy and powerful industry in the US. Nowhere near as powerful as media. Wealthy sure.

media == tech these days. twitter, Instagram, TikTok, FB, they are media, YouTube is media.

Google is media.

The largest US companies by market cap considered “Information Technology” nowadays are Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Visa and Mastercard.

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

#94

Post by paulgb »

Aerroon wrote: post #85
AlexandrB wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech industry needs more investigative coverage, not less. The reason disasters like Theranos or Nikola were able to waste as much time and money as they did is because most of the tech press is focused on regurgitating press releases and hyping up the next big thing.

I don't see how investigative journalism would fix the situation though. Theranos scammed wealthy investors. Wealthy investors should be able to do at least a little bit of due diligence. If they had done that then they would've known their idea was not feasible. It's the investors themselves that added to the hype regardless of the press releases.

Theranos scammed wealthy investors but also hurt a lot of other people in the process, namely patients who received bad tests and employees who have a black mark on their resume.

In an ideal world maybe investors would have done more DD, but there is a lot of money out there. Many investors likely did turn them down, since their funders didn’t include many traditional SV VCs, despite being next door to Sand Hill Road.

It was ultimately the WSJ that broke the story. Even if investors find something during DD, they have strong incentives (libel law) not to share it.

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

#95

Post by astrange »

Aerroon wrote: post #85
AlexandrB wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech industry needs more investigative coverage, not less. The reason disasters like Theranos or Nikola were able to waste as much time and money as they did is because most of the tech press is focused on regurgitating press releases and hyping up the next big thing.

I don't see how investigative journalism would fix the situation though. Theranos scammed wealthy investors. Wealthy investors should be able to do at least a little bit of due diligence. If they had done that then they would've known their idea was not feasible. It's the investors themselves that added to the hype regardless of the press releases.

Remember Theranos wasn't even big tech, and only had one major Silicon Valley investor in it; they were a fake big tech company attracting people who wanted to be SV but weren't. The usual VCs didn't even trust them!

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

#96

Post by astrange »

couchand wrote: post #8
_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…

Dude's been going on a downward spiral for years. Nothing he says these days follows any kind of coherent framework, it's just something thrown on the wall to see what sticks. He's really honestly describing himself with this take.

MattY is extremely consistent, but also can't help himself and constantly tweets in a layer of irony or two. This causes some people to get extraordinarily mad at him in the replies, at which point I like to play a game of figuring out how they misread the tweet, which they always seem to have done.

His actual articles are perfectly straightforward, sincere, and usually on some topic like "Boston subway stations should cost less to build".

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

#97

Post by SuoDuanDao »

bagels wrote: post #71
PradeetPatel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The generalisation of "Indians" in the tech sector is doing a lot more harm than one may think. India is a massive country, with some of the most diverse range of cultures and people. The fact that most FAANG CEOs are Indians should speak volumes. Negative stereotyping hurts everyone, only by acceptance and embrace our differences can we move forward.

Do you consider "Indians" to be pejorative?

He probably considers being lumped in with certain other Indians pejorative.

It's funny, on producing that interpretation my first thought was 'He must be high caste'. Now that's a negative stereotype!

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

#98

Post by xwolfi »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #68
throwaway1777 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too on the nose. When I worked at faang almost my entire org was Indians.

The generalisation of "Indians" in the tech sector is doing a lot more harm than one may think. India is a massive country, with some of the most diverse range of cultures and people. The fact that most FAANG CEOs are Indians should speak volumes. Negative stereotyping hurts everyone, only by acceptance and embrace our differences can we move forward.

Well it's less pejorative than "white tech bros" which encompasses an even broader range of cultural variations.

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

#99

Post by testHNac »

bigfudge wrote: post #66
lokar wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Identity theft is a crime when used to commit fraud. Just claiming to be someone but not otherwise defrauding anyone is fine.

But if a conventional media source published a quote from someone impersonating a public figure, and discovered this, they would publish a correction. Big tech companies wash their hands if this kind of responsibility. That degrades the value of our public spaces.

Note - I am not an American.

From what I have read in American News Media I see so many things that have been blatant lies published by respected News Media like NYT and WaPo. But I don't think I have come across corrections regarding such national and international stories.

Regarding your statement - " ... degrades the value of our public spaces." I believe even your mainstream news media is guilty of the same.

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

#100

Post by suction »

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…

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