The NYT basically IS a tech company at this point. They have gripes with the competition.
NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
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Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#102This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading the New York Times' technology journalism for the past several years. In fact, I'd argue that even before any such "directive" was made, the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly anti-tech, except in rare circumstances where praising a technology sector or tech company served the overarching political narrative of the moment (e.g., then-nasc…
I do read the NYT and I 100% disagree with your claim. In my view it is overly friendly to big corporations of all kinds.
Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#103I don't get why this seems like a big deal or a negative thing. Why wouldn't you want reporters to be critical? Isn't that like the whole point. That's even why we have freedom of press in the 1st amendment, so journalists can be critical.
I don’t really get how people keep misunderstanding the point that it’s not that journalists are being critical, it’s that they’re being selectively critical to propagate their own interests. The absurdity of the NYT crying over big tech for practices the NYT uses all the time ( dark patterns, user tracking, algorithmic curation, etc. ) should not go unnoticed.
> it’s that they’re being selectively critical to propagate their own interests
Nobody ever claimed they were doing it "to propagate their own interests." The original tweets say this: "Instead of covering the industry with a business press lens or a consumer lens they started covering it with a very tough investigative lens — highly oppositional at all times and occasionally unfair."
Ok, define "unfair." Yeah, having all your problems pointed out is "unfair," but that's exactly what journalism is about? Speaking truth to power.
There are plenty of outlets whose only coverage of tech is critical. This sounds like the NYT wasn't interested in articles fawning over tech, which happens all the time and are basically just advertisements.
Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#104All journalistic coverage of everything should be critical, or why does it exist?
And yet it's clearly selectively critical, based on the editorial positions of the paper / readership. The end result of course is a biased portrait of reality.
Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#105I would like to see more proof for this than just one guy saying he heard it from others. It may very well be true, but it would be far more convincing, to me, if some one with actual direct knowledge commented publicly. Surely, if it was so widespread, and unambiguous, it would not be be difficult to get clear evidence of this directive from NYT leadership.
Agreed. And you would think at least some of the journalists would leak evidence of this if they took the integrity of their profession seriously. Again, a lack of evidence isn't proof it didn't happen either.
Journalism isn't a profession. Even nurses and some managerial employees are held to a higher standard of duty. You will have an easier time holding someone who is responsible for fixing ice cream machines to an objective standard of professionalism than you will a journalist.
Some journalists have tried to conjure up "professional standards" that aren't binding, but the fact that they are not binding is why it's not a profession and why those "standards" are just suggestions. Unfortunately, the accumulated cruft of decades of wrongly decided cases grants this pseudo-profession many special rights and no formal duties to counterbalance those.
Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#106This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading the New York Times' technology journalism for the past several years. In fact, I'd argue that even before any such "directive" was made, the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly anti-tech, except in rare circumstances where praising a technology sector or tech company served the overarching political narrative of the moment (e.g., then-nasc…
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Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#107This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading the New York Times' technology journalism for the past several years. In fact, I'd argue that even before any such "directive" was made, the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly anti-tech, except in rare circumstances where praising a technology sector or tech company served the overarching political narrative of the moment (e.g., then-nasc…
I don’t think autonomous driving is unsolvable. But every single company in that field has shamelessly lied about the time tables for the availability of the tech. And there’s been zero accountability for it. Remember how 2020 was supposed to be the year we get fully autonomous vehicles?
The only thing unfortunate about the coverage is that the media was entirely complicit and exercised no skepticism or pushback against these seemingly impossible time tables for deliveries of such a clearly complicated and as yet unsolved problem. They just blindly regurgitated the tech industry marketing pr around it. Has any single car company ever demonstrated a car that can drive while it’s pouring rain out?
Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#108This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading the New York Times' technology journalism for the past several years. In fact, I'd argue that even before any such "directive" was made, the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly anti-tech, except in rare circumstances where praising a technology sector or tech company served the overarching political narrative of the moment (e.g., then-nasc…
I disagree, I believe all press coverage should be critical. NYT and others have spent decades writing fluff pieces and thinly veiled press releases for tech companies, and they are some of the larger champions of techno-optimism in past decades.
Critical doesn't mean bad, it means taking off the rose-colored and not taking "we're changing the world!" narratives at face value.
Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#109This should not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading the New York Times' technology journalism for the past several years. In fact, I'd argue that even before any such "directive" was made, the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly anti-tech, except in rare circumstances where praising a technology sector or tech company served the overarching political narrative of the moment (e.g., then-nasc…
> the bias in high-profile papers was already predominantly anti-tech
As opposed to what? Publishing tech companies' press releases verbatim? Advertisements for apps?
Journalism exists to speak truth to power - you say "anti-tech" but the reality is that tech companies have been trying to convince us for years that what they're doing is some exercise in advancing humanity, "disrupting" industries (read: breaking laws) and "connecting the world" (read: undermining democracy, manipulating psychological triggers for addiction). It's a good thing that journalists have at least managed to remain critical - I would prefer to shine a light on billionaire VCs and the companies they're funding rather than doting coverage.
Re: NYT reporters had a top-down directive that tech coverage should be critical
#110I wonder how many other top-down directives they might have. I'm sure there was one about only portraying mRNA vaccines in a positive light, for all age groups.