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New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

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Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#11

Post by snowwrestler »

"Dangers" seems like a strong word to me. This blog post is strong on technical analysis, but light on substantive analysis. It tells us exactly how many words are common between the first and last piece, but doesn't say whether any factual errors or omissions occurred between the first and last piece. We know that facts and analysis were added, but is that a "danger?"

The undercurrent in the blog post, and I predict an undercurrent here, is that reporting on issues of gender is not appropriate for a story about a tech company. The Times article went from basically a transmission of the official line from Reddit, to a more in-depth story of the background and implications. This is presented, implicitly, as a bad thing. I don't necessarily agree that it is.

The Clinton story had the opposite problem--there were factual inaccuracies in the first version because of the rush to print. I agree that the rush to be first is usually pointless and potentially harmful.

Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#13

Post by jbuzbee »

revelation wrote: post #2

That was the same article?! I was just reading that and though it was some kind of editorial followup. That NewsDiff link seems like a case for Margaret Sullivan. I can already picture the appeasement article in my head.

Seems like a reportable issue to me. Margaret Sullivan's page is here:

http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/

Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#14

Post by rory096 »

notcensorship wrote: post #8
rory096 wrote: post #4

I was hoping someone would write about how bad this article was. (Shocked to see it's the same one as the pretty good piece from earlier.) The worst part to me was the article quoting Mitch Kapor to back up its implicit support of internet censorship: >...charges that bullying, harassment and cruel behavior are out of control on the web... >Mitch Kapor, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that R…

It is not censorship to say that a private entity has the right to choose who gets kicked out of their dinner party. I keep hoping that somebody will write about the difference between censorship and private parties choosing not to support and/or tolerate certain behaviors. It shouldn't be necessary, but there's a generation of people so incredibly entitled and so incredibly insane that they actually need a primer on…

Sure it is. It's just not freedom of speech.

> Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#15

Post by clamprecht »

I think a lesson everyone should have in life is witnessing something first-hand in real life, and then reading about it in the media, and seeing how incredibly inaccurate media articles are. Anytime I read an article about a subject I actually have first-hand knowledge of, it reaffirms the lesson.

Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#16

Post by mingus68040 »

rory096 wrote: post #4

I was hoping someone would write about how bad this article was. (Shocked to see it's the same one as the pretty good piece from earlier.) The worst part to me was the article quoting Mitch Kapor to back up its implicit support of internet censorship: >...charges that bullying, harassment and cruel behavior are out of control on the web... >Mitch Kapor, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that R…

This article was exactly on point. If you think this is off-base then you've been living in a reddit filter bubble; the dialogue there is skewed toward outright slander and misogyny from the most juvenile perspective.

Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#17

Post by pron »

brudgers wrote: post #6

As someone who frequently rewrites, revises, and deletes their online comments, to me the article's changes just look like part of the writing process in a world of realtime publishing. The New York Times did not have a front page story ready within minutes of the news breaking, and unlike CNN, they didn't publish random tweets about the event as news: there's better and worse. Maybe newspapers need git repositories.…

But why not add the new story as a separate analysis piece, as the NYT often does? What did they gain by changing the original?

Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#18

Post by bobbyi_settv »

rory096 wrote: post #4

I was hoping someone would write about how bad this article was. (Shocked to see it's the same one as the pretty good piece from earlier.) The worst part to me was the article quoting Mitch Kapor to back up its implicit support of internet censorship: >...charges that bullying, harassment and cruel behavior are out of control on the web... >Mitch Kapor, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noted that R…

It seems kind of self-defeating to wish that news outlets would avoid mentioning one of the most noteworthy parts of a story because having it in the open may somehow hurt "freedom of speech".

Re: New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

#20

Post by BurningFrog »

clamprecht wrote: post #15

I think a lesson everyone should have in life is witnessing something first-hand in real life, and then reading about it in the media, and seeing how incredibly inaccurate media articles are. Anytime I read an article about a subject I actually have first-hand knowledge of, it reaffirms the lesson.

The fallacy of believing everything else you read is known as "Gell-Mann Amnesia".

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gel...

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