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

What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 87 posts

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#71

Post by uniqueid »

bavell wrote: post #67
uniqueid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but he's better than a lot of the other crappy grifters A journalist should neither accuse, without evidence, someone else of being a 'DNC operative', nor claim, without verifying, that that person opposes a particular political candidate. The gravity of slandering someone that way, to me, is self-evident. It doesn't matter if the person he slanders is a saint or a piece of garbage. If the person whose tweet I linked…

I agree and disagree. He definitely wasn't very professional in his remarks and could have toned it down but in that clip Glenn said exactly why he thinks that way. And this was on a podcast (i.e. his personal opinion), not an article posted to a news outlet. The 'tool' even did exactly what Glenn accused him of on that thread, taking short clips of people he doesn't like out of context and disparaging them. Seems to…

  taking short clips of people he doesn't like out of context and disparaging them
I'm sure Greenwald makes fair accusations at times. The problem I have is with the false accusations.

That said, I'll concede the point to you. For me to continue in an honorable fashion, I would have to listen to the Greenwald episode your comment references, which I was unaware existed. For all I know, in that podcast, he would convince me that both the problem claims are true.

The thing is, I do not want to spend the next half hour (probably longer) listening to a Glenn Greenwald podcast :)

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#72

Post by koheripbal »

Dah00n wrote: post #69
koheripbal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're choosing to fixate on a characterization of the past you believe I implied - which isn't an important aspect of my comment. Being unbiased, and offering multiple points of views is something mature readers value - both in the past and today. It is something a journalist's should aspire to as a matter of professionalism. Can you make the honest argument that you want a news outlet to not even try to be unbiased…

I'd like to hear what publications are less biased (I won't write not biased because I don't believe in magic or miracles). Can you name just one?

I get the impression you want me to name a specific publication so you can argue that it is just as biased as The Guardian. ...which isn't the point of this conversation.

Can we simply agree that being less biased is better than being more biased, as a fundamental principle?

Or are you honestly making the argument that you prefer more bias in news you read?

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#73

Post by koheripbal »

pmyteh wrote: post #19
gizmo wrote: post #12

The Guardian has in 200 years only won one Pulitzer, for Glenn Greenwald's reporting on intelligence agency wiretapping and other malfeasance. And what does the Guardian do? They repeatedly malign Greenwald and publish falsehoods about him. See this thread for a typical example: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1388826988736126976 The problem isn't just that the Guardian gets major stuff wrong, and that they don…

Given that the Pulitzers are only given for work that appears in a US publication, that's not terribly surprising. And saying that the Guardian 'doesn't do real journalism' is fundamentally unserious. I have huge problems with their editorial decision-making, and their attitudes to a number of issues I know about and care deeply about. But they are a serious newspaper, doing far better journalism than the vast majori…

I think it's pretty fair to say The Guardian doesn't do any investigative journalism.

If you look at almost any front page article in the last x years, you will be hard pressed to find anything that isn't purely interviews and sound bytes regurgitated from other sources.

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#74

Post by koheripbal »

ww_wpg wrote: post #66
indigomm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the BBC news headline this morning: "The Conservatives have inflicted a _crushing_ defeat on Labour...". The BBC shouldn't be dramatising the news, they should just be reporting it factually.

That was a direct quote about the labour party by a member of the labour party, so that is factual reporting. > Diane Abbott, an ally of Sir Keir Starmer's predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, tweeted: "Crushing defeat for Labour in Hartlepool. Not possible to blame Jeremy Corbyn for this result. Labour won the seat twice under his leadership. Keir Starmer must think again about his strategy." Granted though they've toned down…

News sources should not be using direct quotes for their article titles. That's just a way to skirt the illusion of unbiased reporting.

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#76

Post by curation »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #28
GlennS wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still possible the Iraq war could turn out to have been the right course of action. Probably not, but unclear at this point.

It's possible that invading Canada today would turn out to be the "right course of action" but that doesn't mean we should kill a million Canadians to find out. That said, even if you believe that removing Hussein was a worthy goal, the Iraq War was a colossal shit show.

As a Canadian I am grateful!

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#77

Post by Veen »

fenderbluesjr wrote: post #39

No mention of Nazi Germany, I'm curious to know what their position was. My understanding is that The Times was very sympathetic to Hitler's claims of not having bad intent regarding Czechoslovakia and regularly railed against the government for not giving their support

I'm not sure what their position was at the time, but they published articles in defence of Chamberlain and his policy of appeasing Nazi Germany as recently as 2007.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/oct/17/everyo...

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#78

Post by bavell »

uniqueid wrote: post #71
bavell wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and disagree. He definitely wasn't very professional in his remarks and could have toned it down but in that clip Glenn said exactly why he thinks that way. And this was on a podcast (i.e. his personal opinion), not an article posted to a news outlet. The 'tool' even did exactly what Glenn accused him of on that thread, taking short clips of people he doesn't like out of context and disparaging them. Seems to…

taking short clips of people he doesn't like out of context and disparaging them I'm sure Greenwald makes fair accusations at times. The problem I have is with the false accusations. That said, I'll concede the point to you. For me to continue in an honorable fashion, I would have to listen to the Greenwald episode your comment references, which I was unaware existed. For all I know, in that podcast, he would convinc…

> The thing is, I do not want to spend the next half hour (probably longer) listening to a Glenn Greenwald podcast :)

Can't blame you for that haha, there are better things to do. I'll admit my opinion of him dropped a little seeing that clip in the tweet you linked... just not very professional, even if the other guy may deserve it.

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#79

Post by gizmo »

uniqueid wrote: post #31
gizmo wrote: post #12

The Guardian has in 200 years only won one Pulitzer, for Glenn Greenwald's reporting on intelligence agency wiretapping and other malfeasance. And what does the Guardian do? They repeatedly malign Greenwald and publish falsehoods about him. See this thread for a typical example: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1388826988736126976 The problem isn't just that the Guardian gets major stuff wrong, and that they don…

My impression of Glenn Greenwald is that he is either paranoid, or willing to stoke his readers' paranoia in order to attract attention. This seems like standard behavior for Greenwald: https://twitter.com/themattdimitri/status/138969371391236917... It's the same refrain as always: 'everyone is out to get me!'

You misunderstand what's going on here. Greenwald is making fun of people who consider themselves journalists but who spend their days trawling through social media to find things to create outrage drama posts about, instead of doing real actual journalism. The DNC operative thing is obviously not intended literally; it's like calling somebody a lapdog or a bootlicker or an apologist. Note that in that thread the response from the "Bernie-hating worm" was to tattle to youtube and demand the video gets taken down because he "fears for his safety". Good grief.

Glenn absolutely doesn't believe that "everyone is out to get me", but he has, unlike many of his critics, faced very serious criminal charges by corrupt prosecutors, got guns pointed at his face, and he has to live with 24/7 armed guards because people want to shut him up for good. We're not talking about the casual death threats people receive just for being opinionated online, but the kind where they send you pictures of your house, your cars, and of the school your children go to.

Given that context, yeah, I understand why he has contempt for journalists who don't put anything on the line and spend their days on meaningless social media twaddle.

Re: What we got wrong: the Guardian’s worst errors of judgment over 200 years

#80

Post by Dah00n »

koheripbal wrote: post #72
Dah00n wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear what publications are less biased (I won't write not biased because I don't believe in magic or miracles). Can you name just one?

I get the impression you want me to name a specific publication so you can argue that it is just as biased as The Guardian. ...which isn't the point of this conversation. Can we simply agree that being less biased is better than being more biased, as a fundamental principle? Or are you honestly making the argument that you prefer more bias in news you read?

I'm arguing that you can't name something like what you described.
Post reply on HN