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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

#101

Post by mc32 »

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…

One of my pet peeves with reporters and writers is that they believe themselves to be studied, enlightened and informed, more so than their audience. And if true this would be great.

If true they could inform me and give me better understanding of the world around me.

Sadly, I find, most of them rely on gut, opinion and lack rigor. They lack basic scientific investigative techniques. So we end up reading mostly opinion backed by further opinion, sometimes backed by unreliable social sciences studies. By unreliable I mean the results are often one offs but they are cited as if accepted fact.

For example, antivax. The opinions of antivax are given the same credibility as epidemiologists. That to me is egregious. Sometimes they do the right thing and call out the questionable opinion as they tend to do with the anti global warming crowd.... But I bet that is helped by their political leaning more than by their being rigorous.

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

#102

Post by notahacker »

nraynaud wrote: post #80

There are two convenient fact omissions when talking about sexism and racism towards Pao: the fact that the fired employee was female too. And the fact that Pao is of asian origins and that Asians are traditionally over-represented in SV and not traditional victims of racism in technology. Those facts made the case for a racist and sexist crowd a bit too nuanced for a front page. (Or maybe Asians and Indians are offi…

Regardless of whether the article's editorial stance is a bit kind to Pao, I think the fact that numerous racist comments were directed towards her is a lot more pertinent to the story than the number of Asians working in SV...

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

#103

Post by tptacek »

toufka wrote: post #95
tptacek wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The newsroom must be deeply divided on the handsomeness of Omar Sharif, too: http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934092/934104/www.nytimes.com/2015... You can browse NewsDiffs for all sorts of NYT stories. This story was heavily edited, but it isn't the only heavily edited NYT piece, and there doesn't seem to be an agenda connecting which pieces are heavily edited and which aren't. The more likely cause is that pieces that hav…

Those edits regarding Mr. Sharif's handsomeness only go one way though. His description never increases in subjectivity. It's not to say the NYT has an agenda here, but rather that there is division, at least between authors and editors. If the paper wants that division to be opaque, and hierarchical internally, than such real-time edits do it a disservice as they bring into the public those debates. If real-time edi…

The Pao NYT piece never changes the directionality of the concerns it raises. The quick-take piece mentions gender concerns; the final version fleshes them out and, in the process, alarms "TechRaptor" by increasing their emphasis in the story.

I can go find other examples of this happening --- of a concern raised in a quick-take being fleshed out, and thus changing the emphasis of the narrative in the story. In fact: I bet I can find a bunch of them, all in the NYT, just by taking a bit of time with NewsDiffs.org.

Do you doubt that, or can we just stipulate that this happens all the time?

If you doubt it, I'll do the legwork, but I'm going to ask that you stake a $20 bet to charity on it (if I'm right, you donate; if you're right, I do).

(Or you can do the legwork yourself!)

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

#104

Post by cma »

tptacek wrote: post #83
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…

Why is it bad? Because you don't like Mitch Kapor? Seriously asking.

Just guessing, but it could be because he runs a competitor to Kleiner Perkins, who were tarred in the updated peice.

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

#105

Post by pcrh »

ihsw wrote: post #97
pcrh wrote: post #35

I wonder how much the stability of the URL influences this sort of editing. If traffic is coming in via a site such as reddit, a new article with a new URL might not get as much traffic as an edited version of the original article.

Internet popularity should not take precedent over journalistic integrity.

I was commenting on the motivation to edit existing articles rather than posting new articles, or even just pulling the original article.

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

#106

Post by tptacek »

exstudent2 wrote: post #94
tptacek wrote: post #72

I'm not clear why I'm supposed to be alarmed by this. The update neither changes nor removes any of the substantive material from the original story (look carefully). It adds additional material, and fleshes some of the previous material out. It seems like standard practice at newspapers to get a first take on a story and then flesh it out later. It's certainly standard practice at The New York Times, as even a casua…

You should be concerned because: 1. the rewrites weren't noted in the article, thus undermining the authoritativeness of ALL NYT pieces. 2. They added a bunch of opinion to what was a fairly neutral piece.

Again: it is not standard practice at the NYT to note rewrites between quick takes and final versions. If you spend even a few minutes on NewsDiffs.org, you're going to see that this happens all the time.

This is important because the "TechRaptor" story doesn't concern itself with the NYT's standard practice --- in fact, it doesn't even seem to be aware of the practice. Instead, it takes a commonplace and uses it as a fig leaf to suggest that the NYT is distinctively bad at covering tech.

Reasonable people can argue that it's bad that the NYT posts quick takes and then substantially rewritten final stories. If they make that argument, they should acknowledge that it happens constantly.

Reasonable people can argue that the NYT sucks at covering tech. If they make that argument, they should not make quick takes the fulcrum of their argument.

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

#107

Post by bithead »

clamprecht wrote: post #43
bithead wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that's not just true of "media" - try talking to a person with third hand knowledge compared to first hand knowledge. It's more a human phenomenon than just a 'media' phenomenon.

I agree, but it's kind of the news media's job to report it accurately. "You had one job" kind of thing.

Agreed - they should. For me it's just that which is exasperating, since ostensibly some even went to college for it.

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

#108

Post by Dylan16807 »

brudgers wrote: post #75
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It becomes bait and switch via a presumption that the editorial direction wrought by the changes is improper. It's not if one presumes that the additional context makes for better journalism: then the changes are improvement. This appears to be the belief The New York Times 's editors.

If you replace a good article on apples with a great article on bridges, it's still a bait and switch.

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

#109

Post by tptacek »

mc32 wrote: post #101
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…

One of my pet peeves with reporters and writers is that they believe themselves to be studied, enlightened and informed, more so than their audience. And if true this would be great. If true they could inform me and give me better understanding of the world around me. Sadly, I find, most of them rely on gut, opinion and lack rigor. They lack basic scientific investigative techniques. So we end up reading mostly opini…

For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that the mainstream US news media consists of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the LA Times, and the Washington Post.

Could you cite an example in any of those four publications where undue weight was given to "antivax" people?

Just so you know: I 1000% agree with you that giving equal weight to antivax crazies and professional epidemiologists would constitute "undue weight".

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

#110

Post by [deleted] »

mingus68040 wrote: post #99
leereeves wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how does that relate to the complaints from the moderators of IAmA, Science, etc? Are you calling them juvenile and misogynist too?

Insofar as they went along with the overall thrust of the "blackout", yes; that is support of a mysoginist agenda. However /r/science tried to sit on the fence by claiming they had to make their subreddit private due to its frequent collaboration with /r/IAma -- a reason which was nonsensical. None of this began until Reddit's administration indicated its intention to begin banning certain subreddits. The mindless cu…

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