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It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

natesilver.net

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Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody reading that NYT article is going to come away with the conclusion that PIJ fired the rocket. The way it was written makes that conclusion far more persusasive than any article less "fair" to Hamas or the PIJ.

[flagged]

HN is still a site about creating businesses, right?

The NYT needs to consider its customers, and ensure they find the balance to make its customers happy. For them, there's a fine line between event reporting, "truth", and point of view.

It's not political backlash. It's pissing off your subscription base. And that's really dumb.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#62

I’m still not sure what to believe on that story. It’s not like Israel to intentionally blow up a hospital full of civilians. It’s not unlike them to do it on accident. It’s not unlike Hamas to blow up anything (intentionally or otherwise) and Israel and the US would both probably say they did it whether they did or did not. The story would look the same no matter who did it.

One hospital in Beit Hanoun might beg to differ.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> News organisations can't be expected to verify every claim. I thought this was the defining characteristic, that set them apart from gossipmongers and fools. Yes, I not only can expect that, I think I should.

You should expect that. For non-breaking news. But when you are asking a journalist to report on an event minutes to hours after it happened then obviously they will have limited time to validate a claim. Especially in a war-zone where their ability to operate is limited. It's not really possible to be fast and thorough at the same time.

Is there value to most breaking news? It's simply a facet of competition between news outlets, most news actually benefits from some delay.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

HN is still a site about creating businesses, right? The NYT needs to consider its customers, and ensure they find the balance to make its customers happy. For them, there's a fine line between event reporting, "truth", and point of view. It's not political backlash. It's pissing off your subscription base. And that's really dumb.

As a customer of news, I want the fucking news. If I want people’s opinions I will go to the opinion section

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a well know IDF playbook, they are not a credible source. Question: It is also a well-known Hamas playbook, they are also not a credible source, so why blindly take _either_ at face value? Why blindly take anything at face value without verifying facts? "So-and-so says" isn't news, it's gossipmongering.

Why would you question that this one particular building out of the thousands that Israel has and is bombing, wasn’t also bombed by Israel? Aside, the doctors at the hospital said Israel bombed them, they are not Hamas.

> Aside, the doctors at the hospital said Israel bombed them, they are not Hamas.

How on earth would they know who bombed them?

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#67

I don’t have a dog in the fight and have been a long time NYT subscriber but I concur with Nate on this one. The NYT coverage here has become even worse in the last few hours. It’s truly bizarre. Here is their latest: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/20/briefing/gaza-hospital.ht... The headline is: Gaza and the Trudeau Problem It begins with an inexplicable few paragraphs about Canada and India before taking a sharp l…

You do realize that the linked article is actually a daily newsletter, right? That's the explanation for the mixing of unrelated news stories.

[dead]

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#68

I actually think Nate is wrong on this, especially on how he states the wrong-ness of the two parts of the story. It seems very likely to me that initial death counts were overstated. But the probability that it was an Israeli bomb that went off in the parking lot carries a lot more uncertainty and I think there's still a decent chance that it's true. There's still a lot of investigation to be done but, if when all i…

On what basis do you believe the explosion was more likely to be Israeli than Hamas? From what I've been able to glean it seems like the exact opposite.

1. Hamas is extremely willing to sacrifice their own people in pursuit of their goals.

2. Hamas was making homemade rockets out of water pipe. Far less reliable than Israeli munitions.

3. Isreal has demonstrated over and over that they will bend over backwards to minimize civilian casualties despite Hamas literally using them as human shields.

4. Israel is not shy about taking credit for bombings even if civilians were causualties when they have credible evidence of Hamas presence.

5. Hamas are documented liars in the region and even their Arab neighbors don't trust them.

Balance of evidence makes it far more credible that Hamas is trying to use their own failure to gin up support.

Do you have real and credible evidence to the contrary?

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#69
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you question that this one particular building out of the thousands that Israel has and is bombing, wasn’t also bombed by Israel? Aside, the doctors at the hospital said Israel bombed them, they are not Hamas.

> Aside, the doctors at the hospital said Israel bombed them, they are not Hamas. How on earth would they know who bombed them?

Maybe it was the same people that bombed the rest of the city? The parent said Hamas made the claim, but it was doctors at the hospital.

Re: It's easy to screw up on breaking news but you have to admit when you do

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

HN is still a site about creating businesses, right? The NYT needs to consider its customers, and ensure they find the balance to make its customers happy. For them, there's a fine line between event reporting, "truth", and point of view. It's not political backlash. It's pissing off your subscription base. And that's really dumb.

Okay good, so we’re on the same page that NYT will lie and be dishonest for commercial purposes and isn’t an outlet of journalist integrity.
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