Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New York Times' Reddit Piece Shows Dangers of Internet Journalism

techraptor.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 277 posts

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

#151

Post by woah »

leereeves wrote: post #84
mingus68040 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article was exactly on point. If you think this is off-base then you've been living in a reddit filter bubble; the dialogue there is skewed toward outright slander and misogyny from the most juvenile perspective.

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

This person is speculating about the office politics of a site they actively dislike. I doubt that they have given it any thought, or even have any knowledge on the topic.

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

#152

Post by vonklaus »

tptacek wrote: post #139
vonklaus wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Feminist blogs and News Agencies" Is what I said. I don't understand what you are implying though.

That your belief that there are entire news agencies corrupted by feminism is revealing.

My point (which I stated in the parent twice) was that people regularly fall victim to confirmation bias and choose the facts that support their own beliefs. I think I was fairly objective in pointing out that there are opposing viewpoints and people tend to gravitate towards places (blogs, communities, sub-communities, news agencies) that reflect their own views.

> there are entire news agencies corrupted by feminism is revealing

I don't want to debate whether something like xojane is "feminist" or a "blog" or a "news agency" or both. My point was that people look to confirm their own viewpoint, which it seems you are doing here rather than see the point I stated several times. Again, it was that there are opposing sources in media and people gravitate towards views and media that confirm their internal bias.

edit: I can no longer edit the parent post but if it is helpful to others reading it, substitute "news agencies" for "articles concerned with feminist/women's issues"

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

#153

Post by TorKlingberg »

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…

Your comment is a bit inflammatory, but thanks, it's good to know the political biases of a source.

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

#154

Post by yzzxy »

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…

Well, lots of vitriolic responses here. Let me say that I don't really have a strong opinion on this article here because I don't really wish to delve into the entire bibliography, but:

1. The points I mentioned are at very least closely related to the topic of the article. They are not totally an argumentum ad hominem, the moment TechRaptor began to commentate on journalistic integrity they opened themselves to comparison of their own journalistic integrity. This does not mean they are wrong about the NYT, it just means there is a possibility of hypocrisy and irony in their accusations.

2. I do not believe this history taints their reporting, only that perhaps greater care should be taken with accepting their claims on similar topics.

3. Please note that the first paragraph of my response carries no value judgement on Techraptor (just a quick, largely neutral history for context), and the second paragraph only includes what I mark as my own personal opinion. I mentioned the "death of author" incident only to note that TechRaptor writers seem to be amateurs (not a sin in any way) who are perhaps not as well antiquated with all industry practices in journalism as NYT writers may be. This does not mean they are wrong.

4. I have also been frustrated when news outlets silently update stories with changes/corrections after those issues are pointed out by myself and others. I have not really engaged over those because the topics of discussion were largely unimportant and I did not really feel invested enough to start a large public argument with a news site or magazine. So I think there is a real issue here to be discussed and I don't wish to silence anyone.

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

#155

Post by leereeves »

tptacek wrote: post #148
leereeves wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about the petition. Mea culpa; it was just moved. What's your source re the salary negotiation policy? Numerous news stories said it was Pao's decision. The move to SF was often brought up again in discussions over the past couple weeks. Contra the misogyny argument, there's anger at reddit that pre-dates Pao. Regarding the Altman quote and Pao's statement that "it made sense to bring someone in that sha…

Here is the entire Victoria graf: Ms. Pao’s departure from Reddit was prompted after the online message board’s tight-knit community broke into upheaval when news broke that Victoria Taylor, a prominent and well-liked Reddit employee, had been suddenly dismissed from the company this month with no public explanation. In protest, Reddit users shut down hundreds of sections of the message board. This graf: * Establishe…

> I do not think you can win an argument that the Times tried to spin the Victoria Taylor issue out of the article.

That's not exactly what I said, and certainly nothing I meant to imply. Allow me to try again:

The article ignored the complaints expressed by the moderators.

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

#156

Post by jclulow »

vonklaus wrote: post #135
tptacek wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Feminist news agencies".

> "Feminist blogs and News Agencies" Is what I said. I don't understand what you are implying though.

One imagines this is precisely the confusion the Oxford comma might prevent.

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

#157

Post by pkinsky »

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 sound just like the kind of person that refuses to read any article published in Al Jazeera.

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

#158

Post by egocodedinsol »

tptacek wrote: post #149
egocodedinsol wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is not standard practice at the NYT to note rewrites between quick takes and final versions. ... they should acknowledge that it happens constantly. I thought this was the point of the article?

No, it is not. The article's claim is more specific. In essence, what it says is that the Times does not provide a "git blame" for all their articles, and for that reason, it is bad at covering technology.

hmm, I didn't read it as a piece about nyt covering tech, but about covering news posted on the internet, with the ability to rapidly update and change articles without providing a record. E.g. they gave an example of the AP and spoke of journalism generally. I guess both examples, nyt/reddit, AP/email had an element of tech in them.

Fwiw, this shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of the article.

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

#159

Post by rory096 »

tptacek wrote: post #129
rory096 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Kapor really supports additional censorship on reddit? My issue isn't with what he said in his quote. It's that the Times changed their well-balanced piece into one that implies the crappy parts of reddit need to be brought under 'control' and quoted a sentence from Kapor that lends support. I may be wrong (and to be honest I don't personally know much about Mitch), but I'd be surprised if a founder of t…

If you're going to make an argument that this piece is "pro-censorship", you're going to have to support it with evidence from the text. I just took the time to reread it, and I do not see support for censorship in it.

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)

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

#160

Post by kbenson »

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…

I would absolutely love being able to subscribe to a feed of changes to a story, and/or be notified as additional stories related to the subject story were released. For example, if I subscribed to this story for both changes and for related stories, and there's a revision to that article or there's another big reddit story a year from now, I would love to get some notification.

This is there news organizations can really add value in the digital age, by being more interactive with their user's wants and desires. I expect the NYT to report on most things worth a national audience. I would trust subscribing to them for additional info in a way I couldn't with some smaller news source.

Post reply on HN