New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by reb » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

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…

>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 reality.

We best get used to it, the baby boomers will be with us for a while.

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

#22

Post by notcensorship » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

rory096 wrote: post #14

notcensorship wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's incredibly disingenuous to claim that having some guidelines on a private forum (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html) counts as "Internet Censorship".

You are actively supporting hatred by making that argument.

It is not censorship or suppression of speech to tell a bigot that they can no longer borrow your megaphone. The bigot remains free to buy, build, or borrow another megaphone, a fact demonstrated clearly by the rise of voat.

It is morally reprehensible to argue that taking away a privately owned megaphone is equivalent to censorship. It diminishes the meaning of the word, and boils it down to nothing. You should be ashamed of yourself for making such a truly insane and asinine argument.

edit: rory is lying when he claims that the original draft was just me calling him out. I know, I know... it's shocking that somebody who thinks that conde needs to actively support hate speech is a lair, but he is.

edit2: rory, it is BATSHIT FUCKING INSANE that you think that a private entity has some sort of duty to provide their megaphone to any bigot for any purpose.

edit3: rory, you are one of the most entitled human beings on the planet. Reddit owes you nothing.

edit4: i was stuck with editing existing posts because I'm banned from making new posts, and I respect HN enough not to work around their rules.

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

#23

Post by guelo » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

I don't understand what this post is implying. If the original article was neutral and information driven then the changes aren't a cover up, maybe you could call it a cover down? The people that read the original article and missed the updates are better off. So what's nefarious about it?

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

#24

Post by jpmattia » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

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.

> 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,

Even better: Saying something to a reporter, and then reading what you supposedly said within quotation marks. (Although perhaps my data is old and things have gotten better since adequate interview-recording equipment is now on every smartphone.)

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

#25

Post by pixelmonkey » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

"This is a challenge that journalism faces today -- how to fairly update and keep stories current while informing readers as best we can."

I work in and around the media industry, and I don't think most publishers see this as a "challenge" -- they have other things to worry about (like how to survive post-print, how to operate in an Internet ecosystem with Google/Facebook/Twitter/YouTube, etc.)

Instead, I see a lot of excitement around the ability of journalists to update their work after they publish it -- one of the few upsides, in fact, of the Internet, from their standpoint. Just as Wikipedia articles get better over time, some important pieces of journalism do, too -- with the guidance of new information or challenges to the original writing.

But look, the Internet isn't print. You can publish something at a URL, then change that URL's content. That's not a crime and it isn't worrying -- it's built-in to the medium.

Just like nothing makes the moment of publication special, nothing makes the moment of re-publication or re-writing special.

The New Yorker did a nice piece on the Internet archive, who is trying to "solve" this problem by periodically archiving the web. They pointed out that when Tim Berners-Lee invented HTTP, he considered the idea of versioning, but ultimately discarded it.

    In 1989, at CERN, the European Particle Physics 
    Laboratory, in Geneva, Tim Berners-Lee, an English
    computer scientist, proposed a hypertext transfer 
    protocol (HTTP) to link pages on what he called 
    the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee toyed with the 
    idea of a time axis for his protocol, too. One 
    reason it was never developed was the preference 
    for the most up-to-date information: a bias against 
    obsolescence. But the chief reason was the premium 
    placed on ease of use. “We were so young then, and 
    the Web was so young,” Berners-Lee told me. “I was 
    trying to get it to go. Preservation was not a 
    priority. But we’re getting older now.”

You can read the full story here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/cobweb

I think ultimately having a strong and well-supported Internet Archive (if you care, donate: http://archive.org/donate/) is the best possible solution to this "problem". As long as we can go back and see how content evolved over time, we'll be able to study the changes.

And no, media companies are not going to embed Git into their news stories -- most of their visitors don't even know what Git or version control is. And most probably have never even clicked the "revision history" tab in Wikipedia.

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

#26

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:14 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]

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

#27

Post by vonklaus » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

People simply choose the facts they want to hear. On balance, the news industry is rapidly declining and is not rewarded for objective and insightful well researched pieces.

People choose the facts they want

Then they choose where to read the facts they agree with. Feminist blogs and news agencies were quick to highlight a woman being blasted out of tech for her gender and highlighting other related stories of abuse on reddit and in tech, MRA blogs post about how a woman was promoted on gender and her attack on free speech in pursuit of a biased agenda, and some fell in the middle.

Virtually none of these stories generated revenue from consumers directly paying subscription fees. It is ad traffic from people rushing to confirm their own bias.

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

#28

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#29

Post by stretchwithme » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

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.

Not just true of "internet" journalism.

To write accurately about something that you don't understand is hard. You either have to be very vague or take the time required.

If anything, the internet allows you to publish revisions of the original article, allowing you to correct your mistakes. Very hard to do with the traditional newspaper.

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

#30

Post by danso » Sat, Jul 11, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

I've believed since newsdiffs.org (mentioned in the OP) was launched that an in-house diff-tracker/displayer for the New York Times would be both a win in transparency, accuracy, and the company's bottom-line. The first two are mostly self-evident...in terms of improving the bottom-line...well, I often go to the NYT for breaking news. For a given event, they'll often have a main story which they update throughout the day. The obvious problem is that if I've read it once, I have to re-read the entire story throughout the day, and mentally parse out the updated bits.

So why not have, for _every_ story, a "History" link, or even a _feed_ of latest changes, so that readers who re-visit a story can quickly see the atomic updates? For my own reading habits, this would cement the NYT has a place to go to for developing stories...the transparency/accuracy bit are just icing on the cake.

This issue of having an in-house Newsdiffs was brought up by the public editor back when Jill Abramson was still editor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26pubed.htm...

Here's what she said:

> Right now, tracking changes is not a priority at The Times. As Ms. Abramson told me, it’s unrealistic to preserve an “immutable, permanent record of everything we have done.”

I can't speak for her true motives or intentions...but part of the problem here is technical ignorance. Her perception seems to have been that tracking changes would have been too much of a burden -- and she is justified in thinking this if she has never worked with something that uses a diff-like program...and in my experience, this includes most news people...in a newsroom, editing and re-editing stories and supplying reasons (i.e. as in a correction) is a very manual process. If a newsroom is using WordPress, sure, they know of the concept of article versions...but they don't really grok the ability for machines to create timestamped diffs.

However, if Ms. Abramson was familiar with the kind of system that Github (or Wikipedia, for that matter) uses, she would see that keeping an immutable, permanent record is actually quite easy for machines to do. So to create a inhouse change-log-per-article would be quite easy, technically, and with some interface work, it'd be a very welcome feature to more than a few readers, IMO.

edit: In terms of "most news people" not knowing diff...I'm basing this on anecdotal experience with non-programming investigative journalists who, among all journalists, have the most to benefit from understanding the implications of an efficient document diff, but I haven't worked with any who demonstrated that grasp. A common scenario is having two versions of some important document and wanting to see every change made. A diff would not be perfect, but it doesn't have to be, it just needs to triage possible changes to further investigate.