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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

#211

Post by DanBC »

innguest wrote: post #206
cmdrfred wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the New York Times gave the same amount of column inches to holocaust deniers as it does anti vaccination nuts there would be an outrage despite the fact that both camps are about as valid as each other.

There's a lot of prejudice in your sentence. Having some experience in this debate topic, I don't think there are "holocaust deniers", there are only gas chamber skeptics. Same with "anti vaccination nuts", I think there are only people that are against forced vaccination. No one is against you vaccinating your kids and living in a town where only vaccinated people are allowed. If arguments were as simple as you're p…

EDIT: I should have searched for [innguest holocaust] before answering.

There are plenty of people who think the holocaust - all of it - is a lie. And even if we accept your much more limited version of what a holocaust denier is - "the holocaust happened but the gas chambers didn't" - well, that's wrong too.

And there are plenty of people who campaign vigorously to stop other people's children being vaccinated, who accuse people who vaccinate their children of causing harm to those children.

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

#212

Post by shawn-butler »

tptacek wrote: post #111
leereeves wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching a neutral article for an opinion piece would bother me even if I agreed with the opinion.

I read this comment and was moved to summarize every graf in the piece to check whether it was an opinion piece: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891 Spoiler: I don't think "it's an opinion piece" is a colorable argument.

It's called parajournalism. "Opinion piece" has a clearly defined meaning in journalism and is an entirely different genre.

Parajournalism seems to be journalism — “the collection and dissemination of current news” — but the appearance is deceptive. It is a bastard form, having it both ways, exploiting the factual authority of journalism and the atmospheric license of fiction. Entertainment rather than information is the aim of its producers, and the hope of its consumers.[0]

Your bullet list summary reveals little but your own bias/agenda and adds little to the conversation. We have the actual diff and can read for ourselves which is sort of the point. The diff link was provided in the source article: http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015...

I hope Margaret Sullivan looks into this. Seems appropriate.

0: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1965/aug/26/parajou...

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

#213

Post by pervycreeper »

tptacek wrote: post #114
gambler wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a pretty good example of what has become of news reporting. It has an instance of almost every common issue, except misinterpreting statistics. Emotionally loaded language. Blatant fact framing. Suppositions. Presenting one side of a controversial issue as an opinion of absolute majority. Manufacturing "context" out of true, but mostly unrelated facts. It's especially striking in contrast to the original,…

Here is a breakdown of the article, helpfully numbered by paragraph. https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891 Here is the actual article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/technology/ellen-pao-reddi... My challenge to you: Either (1) tell me which of those paragraph summaries is inaccurate, and how the accurate summary would reveal "suppositions" and "manufactured context", or (2) tell me which of those paragraph…

I'll bite. Here's your first point:

>1. Pao is a hero to many online for her gender equality fight, but was ousted by people online as well. This is mostly beyond dispute, except for the presumption that the Reddit mob actually did oust her, which all the principals in the story deny. That interpretation favors the Reddit mob.

Who is she a hero to? How many is "many"? What evidence do they have of this statement? Is she actually fighting for gender equality? You were also right to question whether the 'crowd' (the current wording) is the cause of her ouster, but it is also worth asking just who is to be included in that group, and whether they can legitimately be thought of as a single coherent entity.

That's just one sentence. Your second point:

>2. Pao's resignation was abrupt and happened amidst a torrent of misogynist drama, renewing concerns about SV sexism. It's indisputable that her resignation was abrupt. It's indisputable that the story has generated concern about online sexism. Some people may not appreciate that concern, but that doesn't make its existence not a fact.

We can split hairs about what is meant by "abrupt resignation", but the community has been unhappy for quite some time. The change.org petition has been around for about a month. "happened amidst a torrent of misogynist drama" is a phrase nearly without empirical meaning. Certainly there was "drama" involved, as with any other significant occurrence, but one must ask to what extent was "misogyny" involved, how was that relevant, and what criteria do they use to qualify that term. And of course, "renewing" what "concerns" to whom?

One can continue down your list in a similar fashion.

Furthermore, the context is certainly manufactured. Pao is famous for her lawsuit, and as a consequence gets associated with "sexism in tech". Ironically, while the outcome of the lawsuit determined that she had not suffered gender discrimination, any news about her now assumes as context a narrative that she is the victim of sexism.

The new sexism angle is a red herring, and the article is worse off for it.

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

#214

Post by ender7 »

If you, like me, or tptacek [1], were confused why this is a big deal, that's because it's not. It's common practice for online articles to be changed after they are published, especially as new information comes in. If the article originally contained factually incorrect information that was later corrected that would be one thing, but that's not the case with this article; new information and context was added.

TechRaptor, the site that hosts the article, is strongly associated with the GamerGate community, and that is the source of this concern of this new non-existent "danger". Standing up for "ethical journalism" was and continues to be one of GamerGate's most popular smoke screens. In this case, the NYT article was modified to include context that TechRaptor author didn't like. However, it doesn't look good to say "no, this totally wasn't about the fact that Ellen Pao was a woman" because that's easily disprovable: there are a trillion and a half Reddit threads out there displaying some of the nastiest sexist invective you've seen in a long time, all targeted at Ellen Pao. Instead, TechRaptor attempts to attack the article via a sidechannel discreditation. It attacks an unrelated feature of the article (that it was modified after it was published), which casts a pall over the entire thing, effectively undermining the main argument simply by association.

There is a ton of talk in this discussion thread about how the NYT article is "biased" or trying to present an "opinion". This seems to me like just another way of disagreeing with the argument without seeming like you're disagreeing with it. Claiming that this should be reported on like any other CEO being fired is not a cry for journalistic integrity, it's a request to willfully ignore the very, very special context that this firing took place in. The behavior of the Reddit community during this process, a behavior that was blatantly sexist and clearly occurred at an outsized volume and level of rancor because Ellen Pao was a woman, cannot and should not be ignored. To do so would be, well, unethical.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891

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

#215

Post by 001sky »

untog wrote: post #185
mc32 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a citation. It's more a vibe I get from listening to npr interviews. They have interesting guests with some neat theories about things -politics, economics, social justice, climatology, sexuality, etc. I would love for them to prod the guests for evidence and methodology rather than take what they say at face value. I want to know why something might work not simply feel good that something might work. L…

I don't have a citation. It's more a vibe I get Ironically, something an anti-vaxxer would probably say too.

Guy complains about lack obvious lack of rigour.

HN asks him for citations.

Srsly?

________

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_balance

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity

[3] with ref (1) to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_controversy

[4] http://www.salon.com/2011/01/16/dangerous_immunity/

[5] http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/13/science/la-sci-autis...

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

#216

Post by cmdrfred »

innguest wrote: post #206
cmdrfred wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the New York Times gave the same amount of column inches to holocaust deniers as it does anti vaccination nuts there would be an outrage despite the fact that both camps are about as valid as each other.

There's a lot of prejudice in your sentence. Having some experience in this debate topic, I don't think there are "holocaust deniers", there are only gas chamber skeptics. Same with "anti vaccination nuts", I think there are only people that are against forced vaccination. No one is against you vaccinating your kids and living in a town where only vaccinated people are allowed. If arguments were as simple as you're p…

    I don't think there are "holocaust deniers", there are only gas chamber skeptics.
I don't want to give any publicity to such idiocy but here you go:

http://expeltheparasite.com/2013/10/28/the-holocaust-hoax-it...

http://www.nizkor.org/features/qar/qar01.html

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

#217

Post by nraynaud »

Brakenshire wrote: post #198
nraynaud wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a straight Kierkegaardian element in that behavior, crowd vs people.

I didn't realize Kierkegaard talked about things like that. Could you recommend something from him to read on the subject?

nope, studied at school 15-20 years ago.

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

#218

Post by FredoKing »

tptacek wrote: post #138
leereeves wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deliberate omission of facts that don't fit a particular opinion is a form of advocacy for that opinion. The NYT is entitled to their opinion, but I think it should be expressed in an editorial, not used to choose what facts to report.

You cannot call a reported news story an 'editorial' because the facts it chooses to present are somehow inconvenient to your agenda. Contra repeated claims that this piece was transformed by addition of "opinions", it seems to be composed entirely of verifiable facts.

Would you start a news about Hillary Clinton as, "Hillary Clinton, hero to many..." even though it might be technically true?

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

#219

Post by spot »

rory096 wrote: post #201
spot wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes i'm totally serious and i am still looking for the answer to my question connecting 1 to the rest of the events which you have outlined in greater detail.

To be clear, it didn't happen in the order you specified. It was more like 2-3-1-4 — Victoria fired, protest, subreddits shut down in protest, Ellen resigns (1 week later) — and it was moderators who took down the subreddits, not reddit admins (Victoria was pretty much uninvolved besides getting fired.)

that doesn't sound right. here's the announcement of 1, over a month ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/39bpam/remov...

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

#220

Post by PhantomGremlin »

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.

Not if the print edition is considered the record.

The NY Times, like all newspapers, is feeling some financial pain. However, go back about 40 or 50 years to the salad days, and there was no such thing as "the print edition". Many newspapers, including the Times, published a number of editions during the day. National papers were also published regionally, with somewhat different contents. I don't know what happens nowadays.

In times of old, the NY Times National edition was supplanted by the Late City edition. But this caused some problems, as this FAQ discusses: http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/faqs/news/nyteds.html

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