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

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

#251

Post by mc32 » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 5:18 AM UTC

001sky wrote: post #215

untog wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'm not a journalist and don't have their gravitas. Journalists have some gravitas and it should be required that have some modicum of rigor. This is a forum where we exchange ideas not an organ of record and the one who is taken to be the preeminent news source in North America.

There is a difference. They have whole teams dedicated to research. Use them. As someone upstream said, don't take one fact and weave a theory around it. Make sound reasoning and use the research teams available to them.

Thomas asked for evidence from select publications. I don't bookmark things like that. I don't even recall where I might have read or heard the anti-vaxers, but they are an example of a group whose voice is given much too much voice in mainstream media, in my view.

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

#252

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #137

mc32 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think part of the problem of scientific reporting is that journalists deliberately look for sensationalist material, and how journalists discuss science is little different from how Bill O'Reilly might react if he just found an exclusive clip of Hillary Clinton getting drunk and saying stupid things. Bill O'Reilly and his team would probably be thinking about how this might be worth a month of material. The other p…

Depends on what you mean by "honest". I would probably trust him not to maliciously proclaim falsehood when it is obvious and known to him that it is false. But I wouldn't trust him not to "find a single piece of evidence and spin whatever narrative they want from it". In fact, there are documented instances where Tyson changed or invented quotes to fit his narrative, so that ship has sailed.

I'd trust somebody like Tyson the same way I trust Wikipedia - if the matter is factual and mostly uncontroversial (like how the steam engine works or what is the value of pi with certain precision and how one could calculate it) I'd have pretty high degree of trust. If the matter is a subject of controversy, you need to verify the references - or seek out the sources and proof if there is none, and then you need to consider how trustworthy those are too, without these the degree of trust would be "some people think that it is true".

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

#253

Post by smsm42 » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 5:44 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #167

rory096 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd specifically point to the Hero vs Angry Mob motif and the quote "bullying, harrassment[ sic ] and ugly behavior are out of control on the web," which implies that they must be brought under control. Obviously within the context of the overall spin towards sexism as the sole cause we discussed over there -> ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9871281 )

The article doesn't saying bullying is out of control. The article says that the Pao incident will renew charges that bullying is out of control. And: Pao's resignation demonstrable did renew those charges!

As James Taranto likes to note, "some people" in journalism is a first person pronoun.

Or at least some people are saying so.

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

#254

Post by threatofrain » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 7:16 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #243

threatofrain wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the problem of scientific reporting is that journalists deliberately look for sensationalist material, and how journalists discuss science is little different from how Bill O'Reilly might react if he just found an exclusive clip of Hillary Clinton getting drunk and saying stupid things. Bill O'Reilly and his team would probably be thinking about how this might be worth a month of material. The other p…

Actually, No I would not since he seems to go outside his knowledge base, gets political, and make some false statements. Check his validated Twitter feed for some examples. Now if Feynman was still around, I would trust him since he had a record of giving honest opinions.

It's not Neil's beliefs on politics that people care about. Instead, we care when he makes statements about the field of physics. Not a phenomena, but the field itself. It's because those statements can be incredibly useful to a lay audience.

Imagine hearing this claim: "Most psychologists nowadays use cognitive behavioral therapy, or some kind of statistically-backed similar therapy involving cognitive work, while psychodynamic approaches have almost all but died except in southern California."

This doesn't make a claim about psychological phenomena. Instead this is a claim about the field of psychology. And it's incredibly useful because you don't have to understand the merits of one therapeutic approach over another. Just by hearing about trends of expert behavior, you can develop useful guesses.

If I heard that a dental procedure had fallen out of favor among dentists, I would use that information. As a layperson, I don't need to know about the technicalities of some dental procedure. And I am quite aware that experts can talk me into any way they want. What I want to hear is a representation on the field of dentistry.

I think it is THIS function that we want out of an expert scientific journalist or propagator. We should want someone who can represent the temperature of the field, as opposed to merely making a claim on a phenomena. I trust Neil to say that "most physicists believe X" without spin or deceit.

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

#255

Post by ender7 » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 7:51 AM UTC

Ralfp wrote: post #238

ender7 wrote: post #214

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. Tec…

> Standing up for "ethical journalism" was and continues to be one of GamerGate's most popular smoke screens. This is very unfair and uninformed statement to make about GG. Most important thing to know about GG is that there are many images of GG circulating around. For some people GG is internet hate campaign. For others its political movement. For others its protest of trends on game scene. For others its outrage a…

I sympathize with your plea for us to move beyond labels, but that doesn't change the nature of this TechRaptor piece.

This is a smoke screen and it is being used in the same old way to obliquely discredit an argument that a member of the GG community doesn't like. And the argument being discredited is, once again, about the status of women in tech and on the Internet. Far from being an "unfair" characterization -- it's depressingly apt here.

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

#256

Post by Murky42 » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 11:40 AM UTC

rory096 wrote: post #178

spot wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am trying to figure out what's happened here and having a lot of trouble. This is the first I heard about the shutdown of some hate subreddits. But how did that play into this? What I know: 1) victoria (and reddit management) shuts down 5 subreddits. 2) victoria is fired (maybe because she refused to move to sf and was otherwise insubordinate). 3) reddit erupts with support for victoria and hate for ellen. 4) ellen…

(assuming you're serious?) 1) Victoria, the admin who interfaces celebrities and /r/IAmA, was abruptly dismissed. No cause given, which grew a lot of conspiracy theories, but that's obviously standard practice when you fire an employee. 2) /r/IAmA mods find out when a PR rep reaches out to them after showing up at reddit offices and finding out their appointment with Victoria was canceled. Mods don't know how to get…

9) People were using this incident to complain about various things during the entire run of it.

It is merely still going on and might receive slightly more attention now that the shit show is winding down.

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

#257

Post by Globrazu » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 11:58 AM UTC

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…

It's funny because this isn't even true, TechRaptor as a Tech reporting site has existed since early 2013, here is a Web Archive from about a year before "GamerGate" started: http://web.archive.org/web/20131124114156/http://techraptor....

In fact it was founded by Rutledge Daugette in March 2013, over a year before "GamerGate".

What this should tell you both about said claim and the person making it I would like to leave to you.

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

#258

Post by Murky42 » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 12:00 PM UTC

TorKlingberg wrote: post #177

nbouscal wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming the hatred for my hypothetical white male CEO would follow the same narrative pathways. I'm claiming that it's easy to imagine reddit hating a white male CEO as much or more than Ellen Pao. I won't disagree that race and gender were used as part of that hatred, that's obviously the case. I think, though, that it's easy to mix up whether things are tools that people use to attack someone they already…

I agree that the Reddit "hivemind" does not hate a woman just for being a woman, and they can definitely hate a white man. I still think they are more likely to hate a woman. The hate against Ellen Pao started with her lawsuit which is related to her gender. To take a hypotetical, let's say Reddit's CEO was a gay man who had sued a previous employer for something related to discrimination based on sexual orientation.…

If the trial based on sexual orientation was still as obviously fraudulent as pao's trial was then the result would be largely the same I think.

After reading up on the trial to me it seemed rather obvious that the suit was fraudulent and had no basis in reality. The jury quickly reached a unanimous agreement on almost all of the counts as well with little room for debate on most of the issues at hand. As far as I recall they just spent a bit of time on the details regarding one specific thingamabob.

FPH ban had some hate against pao but not on this level as far as I recall (wasn't really in the drama then). The jailbait shebangle is before my time so dunno there.

This combined with the various ethical misadventures of her and her homosexual husband (which would actually help them considerably from an ethical viewpoint considerably if the CEO was actually a gay male as then it wouldn't be an obvious sham marriage).

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

#259

Post by Globrazu » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 12:04 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #223

tptacek wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to 'yzzxy, "TechRaptor" is a GamerGate spin-off site. So the subtextual nefariousness might be what you think it is: a bunch of people who don't like it when people write about gender discrimination making special pleading arguments about how the Internet should be covered by press outlets.

Seeing you, of all people, peddling this genetic fallacy claptrap is rather discouraging. Any such "subtextual nefariousness" is in the mind of the reader.

It's funny because it isn't even true, TechRaptor as a Tech reporting site has existed since early 2013, here is a Web Archive from about a year before "GamerGate" started: http://web.archive.org/web/20131124114156/http://techraptor....

In fact it was founded by Rutledge Daugette in March 2013, over a year before "GamerGate" started in August 2014. So apparently the site was "set up by evil GamerGaters" over a year and a half before it ever existed in prescient foreknowledge and expectation.

What this should tell you both about said claim and the people making it I would like to leave up to you.

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

#260

Post by Globrazu » Sun, Jul 12, 2015, 12:10 PM UTC

anon3_ wrote: post #172

comex wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, Mike Isaac, the original writer, seems to have a good amount of domain expertise, as starting last week he has been posting frequently on Reddit in an official role, discussing/answering questions about his reporting on the site. (Also claims to have been a redditor for five years, presumably on some other account.) Oddly, all of his official account's posts have been in the GamerGate subreddit. https:/…

Good catch. Up until now, no one has pointed out the article eerily resembles the tones that began GamerGate. The more you look at it, the more it appears to be a deliberate troll to highlight the irony of injecting identity politics into journalism. He's a trojan horse. https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3cur16/im_m... Also, so called "anti-gamer gaters" don't simply go off and offer AMA's to "gamergat…

It's funny that a writer for the New York Times is apparently tainted because he held an AMA.

An AMA which he held deliberately vague and where he made various of the claims that critics of "GamerGate" make to begin with, for which he was amply downvoted at times: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3cur16/im_m...

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3cur16/im_m...

Again, what does this say about an ideology that sees someone writing for a giant publication as "tainted" simply for posting in a certain Subreddit, even if he largely agrees with them?