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My Resignation from the Intercept

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Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#901

Post by chiefalchemist »

dmix wrote: post #394
lordnacho wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the Economist, FT and the WSJ still have a somewhat positive reputation. They're expensive and tend to write about things that are important, not sensational. All other publications are slowly falling victim to the parametdynamicser of the entertainment game, including ones that were also in that bracket not long ago. Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now, they did start with a high rep and t…

> Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly. Which sucks because NYT easily has one of the best web design teams on the internet IMO and I used to look forward to reading it daily for over a decade. I'm still angry that they chose to go all Buzzfeed and hammer it everywhere politicially on their website. WSJ has been a fine replacement, but it's not as e…

Yes. But relativelty that mighty fall makes them reek like trash. At that point, it's a duck.

What's worse is they continue to leverage their once-stellar reputations to sell second-rate "stuff" as "news". They've lowered to bar for the accepted definition of journalism.

They might not suck, but they're intentional pursuit falling has broad societal and cultural implications. Perhaps not 100% tabloid, but they use that tool enough to make it more and more legitimate.

To have a healthy and proper Democracy requires a coherent, honest and transparent Fourth Estate. That ship has sailed, and it was prior to Jan 2017.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#902

Post by Cederfjard »

reaperducer wrote: post #361
jrochkind1 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the general sense, it's not a new problem. One of the main points I got from Chomsky & Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing news from a decade earlier), is that journalists print what the government says because it's convenient -- it's less work to print what the government (or anyone else) says at a press conference than to do your own research -- AND even when it comes to privately given info, becau…

Chomsky & Herman's _Manufacturing Consent_ (1988, analyzing news from a decade earlier), While it may be good work, it's so out of date it's useless as a tool for evaluating the media landscape of today. I spent 20 years as a journalist and can tell you from first-hand experience and the contacts I have kept in the industry that the media today is not the same as the media of 2010, or 2000, or 1990, and certainly not…

It's not clear to me whether you've read it and are making this argument knowing the case it makes, or if you just saw that date and dismissed it a priori.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#903

Post by dustingetz »

gfodor wrote: post #6

The media has fallen into the well-known trap of optimizing the wrong KPI. You want to maximize trust with the public, not engagement, if you want your media company to survive if its value proposition is providing journalism and the usual benefits that come with a free press. Unfortunately, not only is engagement the wrong metric, but it's also one which incentivizes the undermining of the actual metric you need to…

It's not a trap, it just is. In the end you're forced to choose: revenue or something else?

"Sufficiently Powerful Optimization Of Any Known Target Destroys All Value ... when we optimize for X but are indifferent to Y, we by default actively optimize against Y, for all Y that would make any claims to resources" https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/does-big-business-ha...

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#904

Post by throwaway0a5e »

mschuster91 wrote: post #899
DebtDeflation wrote: post #895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why (apart from money) the major cable news networks allow Paid Partner trash to fill up the bottom of the front page of their websites. "Leading gut doctor: I beg every American to throw out this vegetable NOW!" type nonsense.

> "Leading gut doctor: I beg every American to throw out this vegetable NOW!" type nonsense. That and obscure investments into shitcoins. I get that the FDA and every other public health agency worldwide has more pressing problems than quacks, but what are the SEC and their European counterparts doing all day? I'd expect them to investigate scams and questionably legal "investment" opportunities.

>but what are the SEC and their European counterparts doing all day?

Raking in the $$$ fining banks for missing technicalities on reporting and whatnot.

Look at the incentives and you can predict the outcome.

It's the same reason the DOT spends their time harassing scrap haulers and dump trucks for being a few pounds overweight rather than trying to track down the people driving on no sleep or systematically skirting the rules. Fining people for petty BS is the financial meat and potatoes of their operation. Good Old Fashioned Police Work (TM) is just a loss leading sideshow to keep public approval high enough to get money. It's like how Red Bull's primary business is selling energy drinks but they also have a bunch of extreme sports ventures for PR purposes.

Pretty much every enforcement agency is like that. You want to see the EPA, OSHA or SEC or whoever levy big company ending fines that scare everyone into compliance then you need to take away the low effort to enforce petty stuff that is the bulk of their revenue stream.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#905

Post by raxxorrax »

kev_da_dev wrote: post #190

Go look at all the comments being downvoted. It's insane how many reasonable, common-sense arguments are being downvoted into oblivion. HN has a serious astroturfing problem and I can only imagine who's behind it.

At this point I think many believe their own lies. We read about pee tapes, Russian collusion, foreign intervention and suddenly there is a focus on editorial accuracy. What a joke, Greenwald is far more believable than many of his colleagues and I don't mind him getting a bit invested here.

If all these activists would stop lying and just said Hillary/Biden are better choices because their programs are more foundational, it would have been a walk in the park.

Instead you have these partisan fanatics (not restricted to the US) that are completely fine with undermining democratic processes and restricting freedom for their opponents, even perceived ones.

It makes you feel you can have a reasonable talk with a fundamental Christian instead of a reporter of main stream media. Perhaps there are drugs and blackmail involved, I am running out of explanations. Complete hysteria.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#906

Post by dnh44 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #901
dmix wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly. Which sucks because NYT easily has one of the best web design teams on the internet IMO and I used to look forward to reading it daily for over a decade. I'm still angry that they chose to go all Buzzfeed and hammer it everywhere politicially on their website. WSJ has been a fine replacement, but it's not as e…

Yes. But relativelty that mighty fall makes them reek like trash. At that point, it's a duck. What's worse is they continue to leverage their once-stellar reputations to sell second-rate "stuff" as "news". They've lowered to bar for the accepted definition of journalism. They might not suck, but they're intentional pursuit falling has broad societal and cultural implications. Perhaps not 100% tabloid, but they use th…

Well the film Network deals with this theme and it came out in 1976 so I'd say that ship has sailed around the world a few times by now.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#907

Post by rswail »

Bhilai wrote: post #671
lordnacho wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the Economist, FT and the WSJ still have a somewhat positive reputation. They're expensive and tend to write about things that are important, not sensational. All other publications are slowly falling victim to the parametdynamicser of the entertainment game, including ones that were also in that bracket not long ago. Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now, they did start with a high rep and t…

WSJ has pretty biased opinion section though where they have almost no standards.

Yes, in the same edition of the newspaper, in the news section, the Hunter Biden "story" was evaluated and found without merit.

Meanwhile, in the opinion pages, Strassell promoted it with abandon.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#908

Post by shard972 »

monkeydreams wrote: post #734
blhack wrote: post #27

Glenn had a 3 hour long conversation on a podcast a few days ago where he laid out the problem really well: Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want to publish articles that will rock the boat, because the people they are friends with are the ones that own that boat, invite them to parties, and are a part of their friend groups. The reporting around this story has been absolutely unbelievable t…

> Glenn had a 3 hour long conversation on a podcast a few days ago where he laid out the problem really well: .... > The reporting around this story has been absolutely unbelievable to me OK, here's the thing though. This is what I call the "Jordan Peterson school of thought." You begin with a premise. Hunter Biden left his laptop at a repair store, some files were found on it, and these were delivered to a Republica…

> The reason the media are not reporting on this is because they want evidence that Hunter owned that laptop

The smoking gun email was verified by DKIM so thats BS

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#909

Post by afiori »

ggggtez wrote: post #346
blhack wrote: post #27

Glenn had a 3 hour long conversation on a podcast a few days ago where he laid out the problem really well: Journalists have essentially become socialites. They don't want to publish articles that will rock the boat, because the people they are friends with are the ones that own that boat, invite them to parties, and are a part of their friend groups. The reporting around this story has been absolutely unbelievable t…

It's also the kind of story that can break someone's journalistic career. Even Fox News wouldn't run the story because it wasn't supported by facts. And last I heard, there still has been no concrete evidence of wrongdoing. Tucker Carlson claims that his evidence "got lost in the mail". In the age of the internet, they didn't snap any photos of this so-called proof? There is no "there" there. Just a bunch of internet…

Carlson never claimed that the evidence is now lost, just that it was stolen. IIRC he also did not claim that it was definitive evidence.

Plausible motive for the thief could have been risk assessment for the documents.

Re: My Resignation from the Intercept

#910

Post by learnstats2 »

gfodor wrote: post #6

The media has fallen into the well-known trap of optimizing the wrong KPI. You want to maximize trust with the public, not engagement, if you want your media company to survive if its value proposition is providing journalism and the usual benefits that come with a free press. Unfortunately, not only is engagement the wrong metric, but it's also one which incentivizes the undermining of the actual metric you need to…

If I take your argument at face value (that you want to maximise trust), publishing an article which is critical of someone is likely to reduce the audience's trust in you - I believe this holds true in personal interactions, whether or not they agree and whether or not you are being truthful.

So it doesn't seem to me that it's "trust" you are aiming for here.

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