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

What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

savingjournalism.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 266 posts

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#211

Post by ivan1783 »

underseacables wrote: post #19

“ Most educated people believe that premier news outlets are inherently trustworthy.” Let’s stop right there. I think the last 8 years have shown the media to have lost significant amounts of public trust. I would say that most educated people inherently believe that the media should not automatically receive benefit of the doubt any longer.

I would also argue strongly against this. When you have at least once in your life been on the side of a news story where YOU generated the truth and you see it completely twisted into whatever narrative the news outlets are currently trying to push, all trust in these organizations is lost.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#212

Post by relaxing »

notimetorelax wrote: post #36
whoisstan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly I just had an unrelated discussion on goodreads about that. The first mentioned author of the NYT article is supposedly a cybersecurity expert. The article lacked any evidence and called the company russian and obscure, they edited that but it’s still on archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20210106195835/https://www.nytim... I left a goodreads comment on the NYT authors latest cybersecurity book cal…

This makes me wonder, 3 branches of government exist to balance each other out. Journalism stands on its own, what’s the counter balance to journalism?

“Journalism” is not a single entity or even a unified bloc.

Journalism exists in the market economy, so other market forces counterbalance - consumers, other corporations.

Journalism also exists under government regulation, despite strong legal protections.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#213

Post by relaxing »

branweb wrote: post #121
Pils wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was a widely cited poll that asserted for the first time ever, the majority of Americans mistrust the mainstream media A poll released by the largest PR firm in the world[0], famous for their work with Walmart, GEO Group, Keystone XL, etc. Why would the creators of "Working Families for Walmart" ever try to manufacture consent? One wonders. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelman_(firm)

Manufacturing Consent is a book that had a big impact on how I perceive media, and I think it's wise to examine who's saying something and what their motives are, but I don't totally understand what you're saying. What's their motive here? I can't see a link between the narrative that people distrust media and their pr work for a bunch of gross corporations.

Removing the media as an independent voice increases the power of the voices left. Meaning, one less force to counterbalance corporate power.

Same reason Trump hammered on the media — one less voice to speak against him.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#214

Post by ameister14 »

fenomas wrote: post #158
ameister14 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make sense. If one block is 93% blue, the other blocks are going to be more red than blue regardless of how balanced they are.

Negatory - the sets being compared aren't independent. That is, the overall population is (roughly) half red and half blue. If you divide that population into groups - on whatever basis - and the largest group is 93% red, then it follows that some of the other groups are going to be mostly blue.

That's only the case if you have equivalent populations and people can make only one choice, neither of which is true here.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#215

Post by branweb »

relaxing wrote: post #213
branweb wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturing Consent is a book that had a big impact on how I perceive media, and I think it's wise to examine who's saying something and what their motives are, but I don't totally understand what you're saying. What's their motive here? I can't see a link between the narrative that people distrust media and their pr work for a bunch of gross corporations.

Removing the media as an independent voice increases the power of the voices left. Meaning, one less force to counterbalance corporate power. Same reason Trump hammered on the media — one less voice to speak against him.

I'd buy that except the major media outlets are the corporate power.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#216

Post by branweb »

aksss wrote: post #79
branweb wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah it's a questionable claim for sure. This was a widely cited poll that asserted for the first time ever, the majority of Americans mistrust the mainstream media: https://www.axios.com/media-trust-crisis-2bf0ec1c-00c0-4901-... You'll note that trust varies widely by political party, with 18% of Republicans trusting the media vs 57% of Democrats. So the post in the op seems to equate "educated" with "democrat" perh…

It surprised you that MSNBC, NYT, and NPR have primarily left-leaning audiences? Their coverage leans left like Fox News leans right, particularly MSNBC. If you asked the surveyed Republicans how much they trust Fox News specifically , I’m sure the stats would be a mirror image. Similarly, democrats trust a news industry which, outlet-for-outlet, is more aligned with what they want to hear. After all, it’s never “our…

"the news media is a for-profit business whose interests are tangential to telling the truth" And yeah I guess I wasn't that surprised by MSNBC, but definitely didn't expect the percentages to be so high for the "paper of record" and NPR.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#217

Post by fenomas »

ameister14 wrote: post #214
fenomas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negatory - the sets being compared aren't independent. That is, the overall population is (roughly) half red and half blue. If you divide that population into groups - on whatever basis - and the largest group is 93% red, then it follows that some of the other groups are going to be mostly blue.

That's only the case if you have equivalent populations and people can make only one choice, neither of which is true here.

They're equivalent to a first approximation, and the numbers we're talking about are from a poll where respondents could make only one choice.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#218

Post by nailer »

> It wasn’t just Twitter that pointed out how misleading this framing was. So did Politifact. So did Vox. And The Washington Post did so rather scaldingly.

> And it’s not like any of those outlets are pro-Trump! And neither am I!

I can't remember where I first heard it, but there's a general sense that journalists view themselves as a 'priestly class' that perform a sacred role not only to report, but to shape the narrative.

The idea that author should have to state they don't support Donald Trump (which has no bearing on the facts) to counteract potential heresy charges for pointing out the NYT's mistakes seems to fit well with that.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#219

Post by koheripbal »

joe_the_user wrote: post #155
buisi wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, the biggest problems with sources is that journalists often fail to provide them. They will often make sure assertions without named sources to back them up. And they will fail to provide citations and links when the source is present on the internet, so you can confirm and verify it. This is sometimes the case for things like scientific research, where you're just expected to know which specific paper…

Journalists don't provide sources because sources would face retaliation if journalists provided their names. Sometimes this is appropriate if the source is providing information in the public interest and sometimes it's corruption if the source is providing misleading information to benefit themselves. Journalism overall has a long tradition of sometimes benefiting the public and sometimes benefiting those in power…

When a journalist uses an anonymous source, then they are putting their own reputation on the line, rather than that of the source.

Unfortunately, as we've seen, there are no consequences for journalists that manufacture outrage and misleading or outright false facts.

...and so consequently, we've seen many many examples in the last decade of journalists citing "unnamed sources" to deliver "facts" that turn out to be utterly false.

...and so the ultimate issue remains that journalists are rewarded for traffic, not accuracy or truth.

Re: What happens when the NYT and New Yorker make mistakes

#220

Post by watwut »

DanBC wrote: post #194
mr_toad wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your company bases security decisions on articles in the NYT then they’re beyond helping. Frankly that’s both laughable and incompetent. No professional (in any field) should base a decision solely on something written in any secondary source. Even if it was a specialist publication, a competent professional should do their own research, and look at the primary sources. Imagine if a doctor or civil engineer based…

> No professional (in any field) should base a decision solely on something written in any secondary source. Even if it was a specialist publication, a competent professional should do their own research, and look at the primary sources. > Imagine if a doctor or civil engineer based professional decisions on what they read in magazines and newspapers. The thought is horrifying. No, I really really don't want doctors…

The doctors however absolutely should not based their decisions on NYT.
Post reply on HN