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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

#61

Post by arrrg »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #44
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…

How is intentionally suppressing speech that you don't like, not censorship? It would seem to be the very definition of censorship.

… but that comment is then written as though every form of censorship is obviously immoral and bad which is self-evidently not true using this definition of censorship.

Because according to this definition what an editor at a newspaper engages in is censorship - and no one takes issue with that. It is an self evidently reasonable position to like or even love that kind of censorship – but the comment writes about it as though any endorsement of this kind of censorship were self-evidently evil, something not many people will agree with.

You can use this definition of censorship – but then also know that liking or loving censorship in certain situation is also quite reasonable. I want my censors to be fierce and awesome! I want to, after all, read a newspaper worth reading. And why not also moderate much more heavily at Reddit? Is that somehow evil? I think it would be awesome.

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

#62

Post by yzzxy »

NOTE: Techraptor is a site set up by Gamergaters to talk about games and tech news without reprecussions from people who find their views exclusive of progressives, minorities, feminists, and LGBTQ folks. They call this "ethical journalism" because they claim to not receive kickbacks or have special relationships with their journalistic subjects, as they perceive their ideological enemies do.

The quality of journalism is low in my experience, notable moments include the point where writers believed "death of the author"[0] referred to authors dying out as a profession.

[0] A major concept in contemperary literature concerning authorial importance after a work is published, see Rereading Barthes and Nabokov by Zadie Smith for a good intro

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

#63

Post by ams6110 »

yzzxy wrote: post #62

NOTE: Techraptor is a site set up by Gamergaters to talk about games and tech news without reprecussions from people who find their views exclusive of progressives, minorities, feminists, and LGBTQ folks. They call this "ethical journalism" because they claim to not receive kickbacks or have special relationships with their journalistic subjects, as they perceive their ideological enemies do. The quality of journalis…

You might want to familiarize youself with the flaws in making an ad hominem argument.

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

#64

Post by slg »

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.

That is very true, but you also have to keep in mind the flip side of this. The people who know the most about a subject, including ourselves, are likely the ones who will be most biased about it.

Not saying that is exactly what happened in the NYT piece, but that is certainly feasible in situations like this. The first person who writes the article is the person who was on duty in the newsroom or its virtual equivalent when the news broke. They don't know the details or history of the greater issue, so they stick to reporting the facts. Later, journalists with more domain expertise rewrite and add to the story. Maybe in this instance they are already knowledgeable about Reddit's questionable history with sexism. They see a story about a sexist website deposing a female CEO who is a controversial figure in gender relations (for lack of a better term). Suddenly the story gets reframed with that in mind. The extra opinion is only added because they know more about the subject.

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

#65

Post by DanBC »

rory096 wrote: post #34
notcensorship wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 demon…

Let me be clear. I do not support the offensive behavior on reddit. I just think censorship and moderation is not an effective or desirable solution.

The only good bits of Reddit are heavily censored by reddit users, not admins. Admins have not censored unpleasant subs; admins have removed subs that engaged in active harassment of people in other subs, in other forums, or AFK.

EDIT: also, parent comment being downvoted and flagged is ironic.

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

#66

Post by 001sky »

brudgers wrote: post #59
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inability to keep an immutable record of what's been published disqualifies nyt from its claim of being "the paper of record".

Not if the print edition is considered the record. The analogy would be eventual consistency in exchange for higher availability: the tradeoff is the occasional stale read.

The ethics don't stop when you hit 'send to print'

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

#67

Post by toufka »

reagency wrote: post #41
danso wrote: post #30

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…

This is basic journalistic ethics, to post a log of corrections made to an article.

It's interesting that the log would also reflect internal editorial struggles within the NYT. If you scroll through the future changes since the major change, you see Silicon Valley described "sexist" then "male-dominated" then "sexist" again [1]. Seeing the flip-flopping edits would surely affect how the article (and SV) is perceived beyond the words themselves.

[1] http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934591/934616/www.nytimes.com/2015...

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

#68

Post by pron »

oldmanjay wrote: post #54
pron wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There is a very clear movement in journalism to create the narrative that Ellen Pao is a feminist hero. Apparently the NYT is in that cabal.

Please stop.

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

#69

Post by usaphp »

MoOmer wrote: post #58
usaphp wrote: post #55

Same thing happens with reporting on Qatar death toll of building stadiums for the World Cup in 2022, they have used a total number of deaths of immigrants in Qatar instead of those who build stadiums ( their overall death rate is on par with other counties even UK and USA), they have edited [1] the article since then but the original impression has been made and now people are throwing invalid "facts" everywhere bla…

Slave labor in Qatar and Dubai is real. Some of the living conditions literally have a sewage trough running right through the run-down and horrible housing complexes. Forced to shit where you eat, have our passport taken away, work unpaid, have no where to turn to for help, and be beaten if you don't meet standards every day. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/revealed-qatars... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/…

Have you ever read the article I linked? You basically linked two articles with the same inaccurate information regarding deaths, they are masking total deaths of all migrants to the ones that died building stadiums. A lot of Countires that held World Cup had a horrible conditions of construction workers but that did not stop anybody from having a World Cup there.

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

#70

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

brudgers wrote: post #59
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inability to keep an immutable record of what's been published disqualifies nyt from its claim of being "the paper of record".

Not if the print edition is considered the record. The analogy would be eventual consistency in exchange for higher availability: the tradeoff is the occasional stale read.

I just don't agree. It's not as though this isn't a solved problem. And this isn't just a stale read, it's a bait and switch.
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