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

My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 133 posts

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#41

Post by teilo »

resters wrote: post #17

The major takeaway is that one can't count on the NYT to challenge powerful interests. This makes the NYT a powerful conservative force in US culture. It follows that most of the articles that appear opposed to powerful interests are a) inconsequential, or b) used as a distraction, helping to create the impression that the paper is anything but a powerful conservative force. It's no accident that the paper ran the Ju…

Conservative in the sense of conserving, which doesn't always fit the right/left modality.

It's as Chesterton said, "The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected."

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#43

Post by losvedir »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #33
finnthehuman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing is why people say the dems and repubs are the same party with two coats of paint. Before 2008 there were a lot of issues the mainstream left were vocal about. 8 years of Obama and only a select few even got lip service. Now neither the democrats nor any vocal factions of the left seem to care about them.

The UniParty. However... This is where I'll make a point. The GOP and Dems absolutely both hate Trump. That's the funny thing about bubble types and die-hard liberals is that it seems neither can see just how little the GOP wanted Trump. They just didn't have a riggable system like the DNC did. That like him or not, Trump is very much disrupting the many of the plans of those politicians that while pretending to be a…

That maybe used to be the case, but they've rallied behind him now. His approvability is 90% among people who identify as Republicans.

You still see occasional "wildcard" moments peek through, though like his (IMO wonderful) decision to withdraw from Syria, which managed to draw condemnation from everyone, Democrats and Republicans alike. But unfortunately, it seems it's all bluster as Trump is wont to do, and will likely not amount to much.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#44

Post by pstuart »

quasse wrote: post #18
rdtsc wrote: post #9

> Obama was determined to extend and even expand many of Bush’s national security policies, including a crackdown on whistleblowers and the press. Ignoring the possible consequences to American democracy, the Obama administration began aggressively conducting surveillance of the digital communications of journalists and potential sources, leading to more leak prosecutions than all previous administrations combined. I…

It's disappointing coming from the man who campaigned on the promise "I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution."

Obama was one of our better Republican presidents....

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#45

Post by cwkoss »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #35
sudden wrote: post #32

And they said alex jones was crazy.`

I like that the thing people make fun of Alex Jones for the most is that "chemicals were turning the frogs gay!" ... and then that turned out to be effectively true. EDIT: Sorry if you don't like this, but it's true. This isn't a defense of Jones's tactics or character, just that people make fun of him for an outlandish claim he was more or less right about.

The paper is interesting, though I think "turned the frogs gay" is probably less clear than "common pesticide causes male frogs to develop female morphology and reproductive function".

https://news.berkeley.edu/2010/03/01/frogs/

Seems like atrazine should probably be taken off the market. Scary for both humans and animals that we are dumping so much endocrine disruptor into our water table.

"[m]aternal exposure to atrazine in drinking water has been associated with low fetal weight and heart, urinary, and limb defects in humans". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrazine

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#46

Post by rkagerer »

resters wrote: post #17

The major takeaway is that one can't count on the NYT to challenge powerful interests. This makes the NYT a powerful conservative force in US culture. It follows that most of the articles that appear opposed to powerful interests are a) inconsequential, or b) used as a distraction, helping to create the impression that the paper is anything but a powerful conservative force. It's no accident that the paper ran the Ju…

I don't think that's the takeaway the author means to convey. The picture he paints of the Times is that they've become much more resilient to political pressure as a result of his ordeal.

In fact the article closes:

Since then, the Times has been much more willing to stand up to the government and refuse to go along with White House demands to hold or kill stories.

I think the major takeaway is really the erosion of journalistic protections which has occurred over the last decade+.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#47

Post by syedkarim »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #33
finnthehuman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing is why people say the dems and repubs are the same party with two coats of paint. Before 2008 there were a lot of issues the mainstream left were vocal about. 8 years of Obama and only a select few even got lip service. Now neither the democrats nor any vocal factions of the left seem to care about them.

The UniParty. However... This is where I'll make a point. The GOP and Dems absolutely both hate Trump. That's the funny thing about bubble types and die-hard liberals is that it seems neither can see just how little the GOP wanted Trump. They just didn't have a riggable system like the DNC did. That like him or not, Trump is very much disrupting the many of the plans of those politicians that while pretending to be a…

If the GOP has such disdain for Trump, then why do traditional conservatives in Congress continue to support him?

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#48

Post by minkzilla »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #35
sudden wrote: post #32

And they said alex jones was crazy.`

I like that the thing people make fun of Alex Jones for the most is that "chemicals were turning the frogs gay!" ... and then that turned out to be effectively true. EDIT: Sorry if you don't like this, but it's true. This isn't a defense of Jones's tactics or character, just that people make fun of him for an outlandish claim he was more or less right about.

source ?

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#49

Post by bm1362 »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #35
sudden wrote: post #32

And they said alex jones was crazy.`

I like that the thing people make fun of Alex Jones for the most is that "chemicals were turning the frogs gay!" ... and then that turned out to be effectively true. EDIT: Sorry if you don't like this, but it's true. This isn't a defense of Jones's tactics or character, just that people make fun of him for an outlandish claim he was more or less right about.

The context is important, Alex Jones was using that study to say that the government was turning people gay intentionally.

Re: My Life as a New York Times Reporter in the Shadow of the War on Terror (2018)

#50

Post by blindwatchmaker »

justaman wrote: post #21
resters wrote: post #17

The major takeaway is that one can't count on the NYT to challenge powerful interests. This makes the NYT a powerful conservative force in US culture. It follows that most of the articles that appear opposed to powerful interests are a) inconsequential, or b) used as a distraction, helping to create the impression that the paper is anything but a powerful conservative force. It's no accident that the paper ran the Ju…

I think its narrow minded to assume a tool of the government is right wing, or left wing for that matter.

I think it's pretty fair to say that the leadership of both major parties, elites in and outside the government, and the military/intelligence services are right wing, and have been historically so in the United States barring the brief period between the New Deal and the destruction of Keynesianism in the 80s.
Post reply on HN