Live data from Hacker News

WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

twitter.com

41–50 of 77 posts

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#41
post #4

Seeing a lot of evidence of late that NYT Journalists arent playing fairly. The Greenwald article which despite its problems points out bad faith on the part of Taylor Lorenz(I think that is her name) and now we have WHO scientists claiming that Javier C. Hernández and James Gorman have bent the truth. I wouldnt be as bothered by this if it were possible to call out bad journalism without being dismissed as a "fake n…

Go to the facts. Journalists check facts all the time. Most reporting is always inaccurate to insiders, so don't blindly trust what is said by anyone.

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Used to respect the NY times, but now it's just borderline far left propaganda

You have never seen far left if you think the NYT is far left.

It's the contemporary, mostly inoffensive brand of leftism: the one that obsesses over vague and all-explaining systemic issues like gender, race and climate change, while never questioning the government-fed narrative on geopolitical issues, conflicts and alliances. In other words a lot of critical posturing on the surface and a complete alignment on the deep themes that really matter.

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#43
post #7

It's worth noting the original tweet is from Peter Daszak, who has been president of EcoHealth Alliance which has for 15 years worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology studying bat coronaviruses[1][2][3]. He's been on record many times at least since February 2020 saying the ideas of lab break were "crackpot theories that need to be addressed" else they might harm our cooperation with China.[4] At the very least t…

Adding on the above comment, Daszak’s role in promoting the contentious theory of Covid spontaneously developing in wildlife is widely and credibly documented.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...

Even if you agree with him, it’s fair to point out he had a strong point of view before he ever went on this mission to Wuhan.

It’s also worth pointing out that in at least one way the linked tweet lends credibility to the nyt report: it acknowledges “heated arguments” on the WHO mission.

Finally, if you read the NYT report you’ll see it is building off recent reporting on the WHO trip by WSJ and the Australian Broadcasting Company. The issue of possible (accidental - not engineered by govt) lab origins for this sort of virus, in the past or future, is also a real and widely covered credible issue. There are a lot of comments here alleging an nyt agenda. Maybe you can argue the mainstream press has one, but this coverage is not particularly unusual, either on the WHO trip or Wuhan. (Also, it can be argued the MSM under covered the possible lab origins of Covid for months, scared of being lumped in with people who were saying the Chinese govt made it on purpose.)

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No true Bolshevik.

Words have meanings.

Not any more apparently. Fascist, socialist, communist, alt-right, neoliberal, etc. just mean whatever they need to quickly slur someone with them. Hell ever Marxism seems like it doesn’t actually refer to anything Marx or his contemporaries ever said anymore. Did you know Bloomberg is a Maoist?

Fascinating how the site obsessed with their pseudo-intellectual superiority can’t add anything other than downvotes.

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was (and is), but you're not going to find many that agree on here. (Even in the comment section of a supporting data point.) People who dislike Trump (the majority of HN readers) are strongly biased to react negatively at the very mention of his name. Ironically, a not-insignificant contributing reason for this is... corrupt and biased news media. I'll patiently await my tribal downvotes, now...

One nice perk of journalists doing much of their research on Google nowadays is that a layman can too -- there is little moat around journalism anymore. So a couple years back I decided to take an informal random sampling of news articles from respectable US newspapers, and dig up the source material associated with those events. I found that when you looked at the sources, about 3/4 of the claims made about Trump we…

I can say with unscientific specificity that for 6 months following the start of COVID, I was buried in media on both sides of the spectrum and researched as much as I could.

Right wing media was largely... not "wrong", I guess? But they didn't say a whole lot that went beyond adjective-laden editorial that was neither true nor false. (How does one quantify "a lot" or "promising", exactly?)

On the other hand, left wing media was (obviously) hugely anti-Trump, but made claims that were often entirely disingenuous and dishonest. (And in some cases, outright false.)

In both cases, neither side did a good job "reporting" the news. The right was flush with fluff, and the left chock full of half truths. In both, they simply left stuff out that was relevant.

It's hard to judge which was "worse", because both weren't honest. I'm inclined to lean on saying the left may have been worse because they engaged in an unending assault that was unquestionably more "active" at being dishonest..? But then, as Orwell said, "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist."

So... it's just a bad look all around right now. Thank goodness for beacons like Greenwald and Taibbi. (And Catherine Herridge. And I'm sure some others I'm missing.)

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add to the list, Noam Chomsky has long maintained that the NYT has a very strong agenda regarding Israel which manifests in any and all related coverage.[1] Such an idea ran contrary to my long held sentiment for the NYT as rational and unbiased but I am seeing it more and more. [1] Chomsky writes about this in Understanding Power.

Noam Chomsky has an agenda himself, I would not use him as a factual reference for any such perceived bias.

[deleted]

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#48
The New York Times of 2021 is NOT the New York Times of 1960.

Trust is lost very quickly, but it takes a long time to earn that trust back, once lost.

I class the NYT of today in the same league as CNN, Washington Post, and Reuters; other formerly great news media companies that have lost all my trust. I doubt greatly whether I would ever live long enough to believe in any of these four companies again.

Other formerly-great media companies that are borderline as far as I can tell: BBC and the (Australian) ABC.

Other media companies that have never held my trust: All of the Rupert Murdoch stable. (Including Fox, Sky News, WSJ, News of the World, etc)

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#49
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add to the list, Noam Chomsky has long maintained that the NYT has a very strong agenda regarding Israel which manifests in any and all related coverage.[1] Such an idea ran contrary to my long held sentiment for the NYT as rational and unbiased but I am seeing it more and more. [1] Chomsky writes about this in Understanding Power.

Noam Chomsky has an agenda himself, I would not use him as a factual reference for any such perceived bias.

Chomsky is transparent about his agenda, and that's the best you can hope for from anybody.

Re: WHO scientists: NYT misquoted us to fit a prescribed narrative

#50

The New York Times of 2021 is NOT the New York Times of 1960. Trust is lost very quickly, but it takes a long time to earn that trust back, once lost. I class the NYT of today in the same league as CNN, Washington Post, and Reuters; other formerly great news media companies that have lost all my trust. I doubt greatly whether I would ever live long enough to believe in any of these four companies again. Other formerl…

I wish I didn't agree, but I really do. I find myself looking abroad for news about the US. One must go through multiple countries as each have their own bent towards the US. Lot's of extra work, but definitely worthwhile for newsjunkies like my SO and me.

EDIT: words fixed

Which US news sources today stay on the neutral/journalistic path in the US? Everything will have a slant of some kind of course, though hopefully there are outlets that are far less egregious.

Edit adt'l: a question appears!

Post reply on HN