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Statement on New York Times Article

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Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#281

Post by bondarchuk »

eatplayrove wrote: post #125

I have never read the blog, or have any positive or negative association with it, but after all the attention this story has garnered, I just read both the NYT article and Mr. Siskind's response. The main takeaway from the NYT article is that there is a group of people in whose writings/blog comment sections/etc racists/sexists have found a home, and his is one of them. He does not address this assertion, or what the…

Your characterization of point 1, at least, makes no sense to me. All the NYT article says on that point is:

>In one post, he aligned himself with Charles Murray, who proposed a link between race and I.Q. in “The Bell Curve.” In another, he pointed out that Mr. Murray believes Black people “are genetically less intelligent than white people.”

I don't understand why you would say it is dishonest to dissect that paragraph and point out that Scott agreed with Murray on something non-racist, and quoted a racist statement without agreeing with it. Scott is not agreeing with "The Bell Curve" and Scott has not said that he believes that black people are "genetically less intelligent than white people.” Before defending yourself against such accusations it would be wise to point out that they are baseless, and of course it's much wiser to leave it at that.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#282

Post by ttoomm28 »

vinay_ys wrote: post #88
cowmoo728 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nothing new from them. The NYT, as the "paper of record" for America, has always been mired in politics and power. One of my favorite pieces from NYT is their blistering condemnation of MLK after his famous anti-Vietnam speech. Never forget that there is a side that benefits politically from telling you that the NYT is being taken over by "woke radical authoritarians". The NYT is a political organization play…

A publication can be politically titled to one side and still be factually accurate and stay true to journalistic integrity principles (or at least that's what I want). With social media and modern communication/publication mechanisms, it is much easier for individuals who know the ground truth to bring their perspective to the fore and poke holes into a major publication's journalistic flaws. This wasn't possible ju…

Not sure tilted would be the correct way to describe it, more lopsided.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#283

Post by bnj »

edanm wrote: post #263
bnj wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t thought up a framework, but one thing I’m wondering is why the identity of the person alone is newsworthy. I’m probably missing part of the background here, I’m new to the controversy. Did some kind of mystery arise around the true identity of the author? Your comment implies that NYT obtained the true identity of the author through legal means — how exactly did they do that? I don’t think finding out the i…

> I’m probably missing part of the background here, I’m new to the controversy. Did some kind of mystery arise around the true identity of the author? Not really. Originally, the blog was pseudonymous. It was the first and middle name of the author, which he did because he's a psychiatrist who didn't want someone Googling his real name and finding his blog (for various professional and personal reasons). But it wasn'…

This is really helpful context, thanks!

I don't really get why the NYT wanted to publish his name against his wishes. At first I thought it was sensationalism but I read elsewhere that the regular readership of the blog was estimated at around 8.5 thousand. No idea if that's right but if it's within an order of magnitude then I rather think the NYT should have more pressing stories to develop.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#284

Post by yanderekko »

john_moscow wrote: post #47
outoftheabyss wrote: post #14

This is the second article I’ve come across today lambasting the NYT for a hit piece, the second in my opinion is much worse given what the subject has been exposed to and has had to endure. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ayaan-hirsi-ali-and-the-... It seems the publication is in the midst of a takeover by woke radical authoritarians. It used to be that you should be cancelled and/or made a pariah of society for…

There's a huge tension in the society caused by the wealth shift from individuals to corporations. As a rank-and-file millennial, in most of the cases you are priced out of property ownership, are expected to do your shitty job until death, and you starting a family would be directly directly against your employer's interests. The woke movement and is artificially splintering people based on identities. It is redirec…

>As a rank-and-file millennial, in most of the cases you are priced out of property ownership, are expected to do your shitty job until death, and you starting a family would be directly directly against your employer's interests.

No, this is not "typical" of most cases, it is typical of millennials living in a small subset of property markets (DC, LA, SF, NYC) who have low earnings relative to their educational attainment + age but also a vastly disproportionate media influence. The delusion that the Ivy grad journo living in Brooklyn whose Twitter follower count is larger than their salary somehow reflects the voice of their generation is a huge problem.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#285

Post by woofie11 »

yardie wrote: post #252
woofie11 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the NYT used to be more credible and run fewer hit pieces. I'm not trying to argue zero, by any means, but I feel like in a very short time -- basically the past 4-8 years -- they've gone from one of the most credible source of media to where I trust them as much as I do Fox News (and I read both, as well as a number of international news sources, to have a complete picture). This sort of stuff seems to b…

The NYT lost credibility for me when they endorsed the Iraq War in 2003. I have been very vocal about their credibility ever since, even though I agree with some of their journalism. Your heroes will disappoint you. Even the NYT have traded their credibility for clicks, I mean “engagement.”

For me, credibility isn't binary, but a spectrum. I saw problems before (NYT was never one of my heroes, per se, but just a high-quality, thoughtful, high-integrity newspaper). It always had its flaws, but for the most part, it seemed okay pre-Trump. Especially during the Trump years, but a little before as well, it seemed like the ends (on both sides of the increasingly polarized political spectrum) became more important than the means, and a lot of formerly credible institutions moved into a post-truth era.

Sadly, the NYT was one of the victims. So was a big segment of academia.

The American civic discourse feels disingenuous and hollow in a way it's never felt before in my life.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#286

Post by hobs »

blueflow wrote: post #233
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I dislike that you call people dumb or facist because they made a different judgement than you did, in regards of the "Is Trump worse than campus authoritarianism". Other people are able to feel differently about things.

Well in the context of fascism one of those things is an authoritarian government leader that praised dictators and tried to take over the government and another is a paid activity that's voluntary.

If you want to make obviously dumb claims about fascists, you might get called out.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#287

Post by Amezarak »

notmarkus wrote: post #117
nexthash wrote: post #85

Wow, the NYT's actions on this one really made my blood boil. I don't even know how to process this... they typically put out reasonably high quality journalism that I read and enjoy on a regular basis. And then... this. They completely went beserk, like little children, with their heads firmly up their rears despite everything everyone begging them to keep Scott Alexander anonymous to preserve his profession and blo…

Consider that you know a lot about this topic and are disgusted by their handing of it. Consider that this might not be an outlier, and you may not be outraged by their handling of other topics simply because you know a bit less about them. I don't know if this is true for you, but I've found it to be true for me. It took a good deal of time researching and revisiting to realize.

Yeah, the NYT was never perfect, but in the past few years it has declined sharply. There are still few other organizations as credible, but that's more of an indictment of the news media than it is praise of the New York Times.

Every NYT article should be read extremely critically. The story selection should be viewed critically. People will say this was always true, and sure, in an ideal sense, but I mean that you will very, very often find paragraphs that consists of five factual sentences chained together and cleverly worded in such a way as persuade you of something absolutely untrue or for which is there is no evidence. You'll find NYT repeating "facts" they reported early on, and then themselves debunked. And of course, the plague of "anonymous" sources (sometimes these anonymous sources are just, literally, the PR department saying 'report this anonymously so it seems like a leak) that have their own agendas and which tell the NYT BS over and over, but somehow still get an airing.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#288

Post by curlypaul924 »

nanna wrote: post #148
twicetwice wrote: post #3

A great response, in my opinion. Succinctly and effectively points out what was wrong with the NYT article, then tries to move on. Somewhat more of a sober tone than Scott's typical writing, but still with a dash of his typical wit: > I don’t want to accuse the New York Times of lying about me, exactly, but if they were truthful, it was in the same way as that famous movie review which describes the Wizard of Oz as:…

> WebMD is the Internet's most important source of medical information. [WebMD, And The Tragedy Of Legible Expertise"] I had no idea WebMD was taken this seriously. Can I recommend to HNers especially across the pond to use the excellent NHS.UK instead, for level-headed and concise medical info.

I don't have any specifics handy, but over the years I've found a lot of information on webmd that is plainly false. Maybe it's better now, but I have been ignoring it for years and encouraging friends and family to do the same. Even Wikipedia, for all its flaws, is a better source of medical information.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#289

Post by mawise »

twicetwice wrote: post #3

A great response, in my opinion. Succinctly and effectively points out what was wrong with the NYT article, then tries to move on. Somewhat more of a sober tone than Scott's typical writing, but still with a dash of his typical wit: > I don’t want to accuse the New York Times of lying about me, exactly, but if they were truthful, it was in the same way as that famous movie review which describes the Wizard of Oz as:…

I don't get it. Scott's response very clearly lays out the ways in which the NYT article was misleading--so clearly that it seems obvious that it was intentionally misleading. But to what end? What are the motivations driving NYT to try and create these poor associations with Scott and his writing? It seems a poor and short-sighted motivation for them to do this out of "revenge" for the bad press they got from the situation, it feels like there has to be something else going on here.

Re: Statement on New York Times Article

#290

Post by adolph »

javajosh wrote: post #241
higerordermap wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Indian, I'd say this kind of "SJW" rhetoric serves no purpose other than causing a reactionary change -- of more normal people favoring extreme right wing instead, and leaving a bad impression about the total social justice thing.

The other alternative is to be independent. No tribe. Or you can be in a tribe, but as a critic and reformer. (Well, some tribes allow you to criticize them. Not the modern GOP.)

Do you think the NYT tribe allows criticism or non-orthodoxy to exist? They encourage certain “criticism” exist to be sure, but only so far as it reënforces their prestige, to be reflexively believed and turned to as authoritative.
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