The New York Times to Offer Open Access on Web and Apps for the Election | Hacker News Reader

The New York Times to Offer Open Access on Web and Apps for the Election

mobile.nytimes.com

202 pointsartsandsci194 comments

I lost all trust in the NYT after Wikileaks revealed how they sabotaged Bernie Sanders and acted as a PR agency for the Clinton campaign.

http://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-new-york-times-propped...

https://medium.com/@Starkweather/new-york-times-edited-berni...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bernie-sand...

I am genuinely curious about this. Do you have a better source handy?

It depends on what you mean by 'better'. The sources I linked are reporting on emails from Wikileaks. Therefore, I think Wikileaks would be the best source for the raw information without any editorializing or spin.

I doubt some media outlets would offer any decent reporting on these leaks as it damaged their credibility (e.g. Huffington Post, CNN, Politico, NYT, etc)

Then at least link to the emails you find objectionable? Everything I've seen is just the normal process of reporters talking to the people they cover.

https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/23554 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/4077 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/27526

What do those have to do with the nytimes? (Maybe explain what you think is going on here, and why it's bad? It looks like they are suggesting questions to CNN to ask Trump in an interview?)

So did I. There's nothing wrong with a news org expressing its opinions -- on the editorial page. But a news organization earns respect by offering solid, objective reporting.

To paraphrase George Orwell, journalism is writing the stories that powerful interests don't want written! The Times did the exact opposite and had a political campaign proofread stories before publication.

If it weren't such a major failure of a key institution of our democratic system it would be funny.

The purpose of the press is to be adversarial, not to help meet the PR objectives of those it views as friends.

> The purpose of the press is to be adversarial, not to help meet the PR objectives of those it views as friends.

Once you know enough "good" PR people, you quickly realize that the press often doesn't work that way, save a few investigative journalists. Some PR-types I know at larger SV organizations have a lot of blogger and journalist friends, and they appear to have an unwritten "we'll give you the scoop if you give us right of first refusal" on a lot of stories.

> The Times did the exact opposite and had a political campaign proofread stories before publication.

This is false, or misleading at best, if you're referring to the Mark Leibovich profile of Clinton. He sent an off-the-record transcript the campaign asking whether it could be put on the record, and the campaign only allowed him to publish part of it. Not ideal of course, but I'm not sure how you would avoid this, unless you think off-the-record interviews should be banned entirely.

I think your take on this is a bit misleading. The only thing subject to being on the record would be specific quotes or statements by HRC. The rest of the article, the parts he was asking for approval on, were the journalistic conclusions he drew. He was asking for approval in case the campaign felt any of it was off message. There was also discussion of staying on message!

It's absurd that candidates should be treated with such kid gloves. HRC should be happy to subject herself to whatever interviews, etc., from the nation's most respected paper simply to allow her side of the story to be noted.

The predominant vibe should be adversarial, skeptical of her motives and promises, and doing the interview and reading the resulting piece should be unpleasant for the candidate.

I know the NYT tailors the composition of various pages based on the print, afternoon, or online edition, etc., but throughout most of September and October, the pre-paywall politics section contained at least two flattering/fluffy stories about the HRC campaign every single day.

I'm sure there are people who want to read that stuff, but they should be asking how she'll turn all the promises into law, why she waited to support gay marriage, why she allowed her cronies to sabotage Sanders' campaign on her behalf, etc. The NYT did none of that. So coupled with the very friendly treatment by Leibovich, the news org doesn't really seem much like a news org.

The level of Democratic party and media cooperation is staggering. Media has effectively become a part of the liberal part of the government. The reason Wikileaks scandal got so little attention is because they all, CNN, NYT, etc, are in bed with each other. It's effectively a government-media complex.

Interview with Julian Assange: https://youtu.be/_sbT3_9dJY4

> a part of the liberal part of the government

It's not actually liberal. In reality it's quite conservative... moneyed, powerful interests shaping the messages that they want the public to consume.

The idea that HRC is politically leftist is a bizarre bit of wizardry that is completely false and helps people who would vote for a leftward leaning candidate believe that she is on their side.

It's arguable whether HRC or George H.W. Bush is further to the right... they are in a similar ballpark... the endorsement is not too farfetched, though normally party loyalty would have prevented it from being made public.

This election isn't Liberalism vs Conservatism, it's Corporatism vs Populism.

I agree... HRC is a corporatist conservative and Trump is a populist conservative.

Neither one is conservative. Conservatism means small, limited government. Classical 'liberalism.'

Both want large expansive governments -- the differences are in how they employ the machinery of government to achieve their ends.

What Clinton position do you consider conservative?

HRC only very recently came to support same sex marriage, after it was a sure-fire winning issue. In the past she has called for a wall between the US and Mexico, she uses race baiting language to make white voters feel that she'll be tough on crime, and her remarks justifying neoconservative foreign policy are very disrespectful of the citizens (typically brown-skinned) of the nations the US attacks.

HRC is strongly supported by the banking and finance industry, as well as by essentially all large, establishment industry groups. This is the definition of conservatism, preserving the status quo.

HRC also focuses very much on American exceptionalism and makes a moralistic argument for US foreign policy. She's presided over the largest arms deal in the history of the world, selling US arms to Saudi Arabia.

She wishes for the US to be the world hegemon and to use drone strikes (terrorism) to intimidate and subjugate the (often) brown-skinned people who might try to prevent that.

As we've seen via Wikileaks, HRC has used her and WJC's considerable political influence to amass a fortune exceeding a quarter of a billion dollars. She's advocated most of the economic policies that the super-rich want most. Some of these are, frankly, good policies, but many are handouts and loopholes that help preserve the status quo at the expense of those on the bottom and in the middle.

I would never vote for Donald Trump, but I would also never vote for HRC for many of the same reasons that prevent me from voting for someone like Trump or George W. Bush, etc.

As we've seen with Wikileaks, HRC despises the Sanders voters and strategized not just to sabotage Sanders' candidacy by installing her own cronies in the DNC, but also by pretending to care about their issues while telling banks the opposite. Not only is HRC a political pragmatist, she's on record actively trying to stop the only moderately successful leftist political movement in the US (Sanders) and joking about it to bankers!

Voting for HRC because she's a woman evokes a tribal instinct that is on the same level as voting for someone because they are white. We all want a world of equal rights and we all want to respect powerful, even flawed, leaders whether they are male or female. But HRC goes way too far with the sabotage of Sanders' campaign and the warmongering. Thus I believe voting for HRC (or Trump) is an unconscionable act.

Most of these are not conservative, they are just things you don't like. Expanding foreign engagement and the military is the opposite of conservatism. Support from established business is a pretty weak argument, she wouldn't be getting nearly as much support if there were an actual conservative in the race. "race-baiting language" and being rich are not conservative positions.

On the American political spectrum, she is not conservative.

Also, you've listed several good reasons to dislike Clinton, but

> Not only is HRC a political pragmatist, she's on record actively trying to stop the only moderately successful leftist political movement in the US (Sanders) and joking about it to bankers!

In what world is pragmatism a bad thing? And what politician doesn't joke about their opponents in private? What human being doesn't joke about their opponents?

I intend the word "conservative" to describe self-identifying conservatives in US politics today, not to mean any specific dictionary definition. The word neoconservative is perhaps more accurate.

see: the ruthless domination and assimilation of bernie sanders, the populist-socialist, as indicated in wikileaked emails.

my feeling is if trump wins, it's because of jilted bernie supporters. what happened to all his campaign donations? hmm.

You're just calling whatever you dislike "conservative." Left/right, conservative/liberal are all relative, there are no absolute points of reference. In modern US, GOP represent the conservatives and Democrats are liberals.

Thanks to neoconservatives, some younger people got used to the fact that right wingers are warmongers building global empires* but these are not intrinsically right or conservative views. Plenty of truly hardcore leftists, like Russian communists who were so far to the left of Hillary they would have useless bourgeois scum like her executed, loved war. Socialism is war time economy planning applied in peace time. They wanted a never-ending revolution that spread to the entire world, or at least the English Channel since they were better at manufacturing tanks than ships.

* Well, trying to build global empires while in reality bombing a random stretch of desert.

> They wanted a never-ending revolution that spread to the entire world, or at least the English Channel since they were better at manufacturing tanks than ships.

The Soviet Navy was one of the biggest navies in the world. I don't have the exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure it was #2 in the world, only behind the US Navy.

And it would have gotten the ever-living shit knocked out of it in a conventional shooting war with the US Navy.

Saddam's Iraqi army was one of the largest in the world. North Korea still has one of the largest. Quantity doesn't have quite the same quality as in Stalin's day.

> In modern US, GOP represent the conservatives and Democrats are liberals

This is totally inaccurate. There is a small aspect of the parties' rhetoric that evokes liberal and conservative ideals, but no substantial policy differences.

The Wikileaks DNC scandal has gotten a crazy amount of coverage, particularly given that we're in an election year.

One thing I'm personally tiring of in this election cycle is the very strong "media is an xyz conspiracy" narrative; a lot of the reasoning seems nothing more than, gasp, people actually have opinions and bias, and marketing spin is a thing. I don't see spin as a "conspiracy", frankly. There is no such thing as unbiased media, I've never known it ever. Connections are not surprising here either. It's rather puzzling to hear opinion and connections being treated automatically as strong conspiracy.

For the record, liberals these days will tend to say rather the same thing as the above, but substitute Fox News and Breitbart, maybe even the WSJ. There's certainly connections -- Fox News certainly has hired Republican big guns in the past, and Breitbart's executive chairman went on to manage Trump's campaign after all. There's also certainly spin in the other direction. You treat the source accordingly.

Narrative, spin, and marketing will always exist (not just for government and media, but for any organization, from big businesses all the way down to non-profit advocacy groups), it's omnipresent in life. It's a good skill in life to develop a sense for looking past the more egregious forms of marketing and spin in life (the "clickbait" of the web, as it were).

Well, what makes a journalist good at their job is reporting facts and allowing the reader/viewer to understand as much as possible and formulate a decision.

When journalists are bad at their job they make it very easy to arrive at a particular opinion without really having to understand the issue. This too is the point of PR and of moralistic calls to action... to circumvent rational thought and make someone do something (vote a certain way, buy a certain product, hate a group of people, etc).

This is true -- the better journalists and papers actually give you enough facts to allow for meaningful conversation and disagreement. And this really is what we should look for, to separate good quality journalism from tabloid trash, regardless of bias.

From my viewpoint, the New York Times still has a reputation for quality journalism. Very few of the anti-New York Times viewpoints in this thread are terribly convincing to me from that perspective.

Adding to your point: I sense they've taken a tacky and somewhat nannyish "guardian of democracy" approach in their headline selection lately. I like to be told the news, but it felt as if I was being told how I should be voting; it seemed manipulative and insulting to my intelligence and experience.

I feel a sense of distrust between the news editors and their readers; that Citizen Kane feeling.

That said, I thought David Brooks' latest piece was well-put.

>but it felt as if I was being told how I should be voting

I've felt this sentiment since slightly before the conventions. Ask this independent voter why he's anxious for this to all be over? It's all the "Do you want Trump? Because that's how you get Trump" histrionics.

"Do you want Hillary?"

That too.

Your links don't match your description of them.

I thought he was talking about Wikileaks sabotaging Bernie and being the PR firm, but I realized he meant the NYT was doing it.

Yeah, that and acting as a PR agency for the Iraq war.

Edit: Google "Judith Miller," then downvote.

Why is this comment greyed out? The NYT shilled hard for the Iraq war. They even issued an apology because of it (too little too late, of course).

The Iraq War part is fine. Here's the NYT's post-mortem on that. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-...

It's the "that and" part that is not. There is no evidence that the NYT colluded with the Clinton campaign against Sanders. There isn't even a Challabi-like informant in the Sanders camp trying to make that claim.

There is no evidence that the NYT colluded with the Clinton campaign against Sanders

I'm not a Sanders supporter but you don't need "evidence of collusion" to make that assertion. You just need to take a look at the NYT's own online archive. They waited until the last possible minute before they even began talking about Sanders -- or anyone else -- as a serious primary contender. Meanwhile, coverage of Clinton was almost a daily affair.

Clinton was anointed by the press from the get-go, just as Trump was anointed with billions of dollars' worth of free publicity by the same media outlets. Their preferences were so obvious, in both cases, that the burden of proof belongs to those who claim otherwise.

Of course, the NYT covered Clinton more. She was the Senator of the state the newspaper is located in, she won the popular vote in the 2008 primaries, and she had recently been Secretary of State. She was obviously the frontrunner.

The kind of coverage that the NYT gave Clinton wasn't more favorable than what it gave Sanders, on the other hand. The NYT broke the Clinton email story.

"PR agency" is quite the stretch. If you read the actual email (https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/10634) instead of the poor secondhand accounts you linked, you'll see that there's a staffer that says "I think it’s as good as we could hope for. We were able to keep him from including more on the JVF"

This is a staffer saying that they talked the reporter from the NYT out of focusing on an area they didn't like. It shows the Hilary campaign is slimey, but it doesn't mean that the NYT has suddenly lost all credibility as a news source. It's not clear from the email that the reporter actually promised anything; it sounds equally probable that the Clinton people were just happy with the NYT's reporting.

I also think (perhaps cynically) that this happens all the time, and is not a huge deal - sources try to angle the pieces journalists write about them, and selectively reveal information favorable to them, and journalists comply to varying degrees to get more information out of those sources in the future; it's not an ethical bright line - it's murky, and I doubt if you listened to all the communication that journalists had with their sources, you would find some stark ethical boundary between sources and journalists 100% of the time.

All reporters talk to the people they are covering. There is always a risk of sources having undue control over a story, but this doesn't sound as extreme as you are making it out to be. We can't abandon a respected source of journalism just because there is a vague appearance of impropriety.

I would argue the Clinton campaign isnt slimey because of this -- it's smart media relations. What does call credibility into question is The NY Times was "talked out of" reporting on something. An objective reporter would tell them to pound sand at a request to not report something.

The Clinton campaign's perception was they talked the reporter out of something.

As an ex-journalist, I've no doubt that on many occasions a PR thought they had convinced me of something when they absolutely hadn't.

Doesn't look so smart now, with everyone combing through their emails...

I read the leaked emails referred to in these articles, and I don't see much that is troubling about NYT's behavior.

This is just how journalism works: the reporter has to request/negotiate access to the source. The PR folks will obviously try to spin everything positively to the reporter; that's their job. Afterward, the reporter writes up a story as objectively as possible. When some part of the story happens to be flattering, the PR people will obviously high-five themselves. When some part of the story is negative, the PR people will be disappointed and try to get the reporter to see their side.

See this article [1] from Mark Leibovich for an NYT reporter's account of one of the issues addressed in your links.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/magazine/anatomy-of-a-medi...

You have very conveniently sweept it under normal PR behavior. And even used NYtimes link to debunk it all. Lovely. Nytimes pandered Iraq war hard to US masses, never believing in any political position they push.

https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/exclusive-new-email-leak...

Nytimes sending out first draft to John Podesta:- https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/844

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213#efmDVTDWd Mark Leibovich giving veto power on a clinton piece.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/7524#efmA9fBAI

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9416#efmATHAXN

I have left out all the normal questions which journalists ask.

Donna Brazile leaking CNN questions:- https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/57027

DNC directing questions to Wolf Blitzer to ask to Donald/Cruz/Fiorina:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/25846 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/25284 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/23570 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/23554

NBC news first draft:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/26390

https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/42191 (Don't know what he/she is talking about here)

Newsweek story:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/41392

DNC Chairman having meeting with MSNBC predisent:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/8867

Sharing story before sharing with editor:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/10808

Jake Tapper questions:- https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/4077

Journalists have been giving the campaign full stories before being published, will Clinton team not push back on any negative aspects?

There are 2 3 other emails; one from a batch released a month ago and one around last week. Form your own opinions if they are journalists asking for a genuine access, or...

Sorry for bad formatting...

> Nytimes sending out first draft to John Podesta:- https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/844

Stopped reading there. This is why we need journalism. People like you are unable to interpret the content of these emails. He is subscribed to the NYtimes First Draft blog [1]. Everyone with an NYTimes subscription can get the newsletter. As you can also tell by the sender nytdirect@nytimes.com [2]This isn't an actual first draft. Stop spreading misinformation and take your bs back to reddit.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/08/21/today...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/faq/aboutsiteqa17.ht...

Good thing, atleast you read this one before ignoring:- https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/exclusive-new-email-leak...

Don't give me your attitude. I got one wrong and admit the mistake on that one. That does not really refute any other emails.

> Don't give me your attitude.

You are right. I apologize for the dismissive tone of my comment.

The trouble is, when you get the first one wrong, it doesn't encourage people to take the time to read the rest.

> https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213#efmDVTDWd Mark Leibovich giving veto power on a clinton piece.

You got the second one wrong as well, so I stopped there instead. He was giving veto on what to use on off-the-record questions, which I hope you agree, is a very good practice.

Someone else can deal with your third, and fourth...

But if you want apples to apples, it's unfortunate that you can't dig through Trumps emails [1].

It's sad that politics is no longer about politics.

[1] http://europe.newsweek.com/donald-trump-companies-destroyed-...

However there are documented instances, with Politico for instance where stories were given prior approval by the Clinton campaign before publishing. There's lots of evidence that reporters colluded with the Clinton campaign. That's not 'negotiating access.' Reporters ethically are bound to not give sources the ability to approve stories. Otherwise those stories might as well be press releases.

I went to journalism school and giving sources prior-review over a story is about as unethical as it gets.

Getting access to a source doesn't mean softballing everything for the benefit of the source. With the email scandal for instance, those stories could be written with or without cooperation from Clinton -- you simply say: we're running this story, care to respond? If they are 'mad' at you, they are the ones that miss out on getting their side represented. Reporters ought not be 'negotiating' anything. We have a story, we're going to run it; if you want to respond, here's your chance, if you don't want to respond, we can report that as well.

Journalists in many organizations have sold themselves out. It's no surprise that most of them are Clinton supporters. The days of Walter Cronkite objectivity have seemingly passed.

The media colluded against Sanders not even to mention all of the Republican candidates.

> email scandal

On this topic, I find it mildly amusing that, for all the accusations of bias, it was actually the New York Times that broke the story of Clinton's private email server.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clinto...

Some reporters can break stories too, and the same newspaper can have cronies too.

There is a good email in wikileaks where Jake Tapper is pushing back against a slanderous story published against him. Made me respect him for that. There is also another one, where a buzzfeed reporter is introducing a collegue cordially and professionally.

It would be a strange newspaper business indeed that sat quietly on a story like that.

> However there are documented instances, with Politico for instance where stories were given prior approval by the Clinton campaign before publishing.

Since you don't say which instance you are talking about, I assume you are talking about this email [1]. Which is kind of curious because it resulted in one of the most negative articles about Clinton in the primaries [2] and widely shared among Bernie and Trump supporters to attack Clinton and now this is supposed to be example of Politico being in bed with Trump? It seems more like Vogel gave the Clinton camp to comment on it.

> I went to journalism school and giving sources prior-review over a story is about as unethical as it gets.

Is it? Even our local paper gave us the chance to comment prior to publishing an article about the little company I am working at.

[1]https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/10808 [2]http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-le...

>Even our local paper gave us the chance to comment prior to publishing an article about the little company I am working at.

Oh that is why you are defending the shitty aspect of journalism. There is a difference between handling all of the story and asking for a comment. Asking for a comment is a normal journalism practice and handling the whole story is the shitty nepotism. It is amazing you are defending this aspect of journalism. Handing over whole story before publishing it. It helps the campaign to plan mitigation efforts, and even can do to editor to edit out the story due to Clinton campaign pushback.

Here is the thing. The email exchange with Politico actually proves to me that the Clinton campaign has a lot less influence over the press than people assume. Politico sent an article that is very critical of Clinton to her campaign. They were trying to push back. Then Politico published the article anyway. If the Clinton campaign had any influence over Politico they would've been able to stop the article. You have to see the context. This was THE big critical story about Clinton during the primaries (besides the millions articles about emails) and I couldn't find anything essential that the Clinton campaign was able to prevent from publishing.

That's an interesting spin. Ignore the fact that Politico gave a candidate a "head's up" about a damaging piece and be happy that at least they still published it despite push back. It's less terrible than you thought it was!

There is nothing illegal (or even unethical in my opinion) to give someone an article before publishing so they can comment on it. It's ridiculous to infer collusion when the result is such a negative article about Clinton. Which piece of information did not make it into the article because it was first send to Paustenbach? Please be specific.

I didn't say it was illegal. I do think it is unethical. It's what we call in legal world an ex parte communication. It's an off-the-record communication with the subject of the article. At the very least, it gives the subject advance warning to spin or do damage control in response--a courtesy I suspect is not granted to everyone.

> a courtesy I suspect is not granted to everyone.

It's worth pointing out that since we don't have a dump of the Bernie emails, we don't know what their press interaction was like. I'd be shocked if they did not participate in this article. They certainly pushed it pretty hard once it published.

>-a courtesy I suspect is not granted to everyone.

It is standard practice in every bit of journalism I've ever seen to ask the subject for comment.

> However there are documented instances, with Politico for instance where stories were given prior approval by the Clinton campaign before publishing.

Did they show the story to get 'approval' or did they check elements of the story before publication?

The latter. Vogel was about to publish a piece of investigative journalism on the Hillary Victory Fund (one that the Sanders camp celebrated at the time). He asked the Clinton team for their explanation and sent a preprint to make sure he didn't misrepresent it in any way, which would have damaged his piece if it were immediately followed by the Clinton camp saying he was wrong and that they had told him why but he hadn't printed it. ttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/07/25/lay-off-politicos-ken-vogel/

If you get all of an organization's emails, you are bound to find an email that looks like some conspiracy on the surface. The people who think this email is an issue are simply not inclined to challenge their biases, so they display their ignorance proudly.

> I read the leaked emails referred to in these articles, and I don't see much that is troubling about NYT's behavior.

Imagine if judges gave litigants pre-publication copies of opinions.

Vogel isn't a judge though. He is a journalist. Was the Clinton campaign able to change the article in any meaningful way?

Imagine if judges had no power to compel cooperation or even communication at all. They might have to work in a different way.

Journalists would work very differently if they could use armed cops to force sources to come talk to them and tell the truth.

If you were correct, then the spin would be spinning the other direction from time to time.

Doesn't seem like that has happened with the Times.

If the bias is because they are systematically getting information from one side of the story, then it's still bad journalism.

From the headlines:

>Inside Donald Trump's Last Stand: An Anxious Nominee Seeks Assurance

>Optimism From Hillary Clinton and Darkness From Donald trump at Campaign's End

>Donald Trump's Big Bet on Less Educated Whites

Indeed, that's how they do that, in the hope the horde will follow their made up winner. Unfortunately most media in this world are more corrupt than people are willing to believe.

No news agency anywhere merits trust. Many merit attention nonetheless; a thoughtful reader armed with knowledge of a given agency's bias and style can still derive useful information from its work, and every blue moon or so one finds a story that's actually true at face value. (Never count on it, though.)

Keeping up with current events has always been a full-contact sport, never more so than today. Whether you feel it a sport worth playing is your own lookout.

(And a US presidential election is maybe not the best introduction to this perspective, unless you value full immersion, because it's the one time when absolutely everyone is guaranteed to be lying just as hard as they can - and all in the most meritorious of causes, of course.)

>Keeping up with current events has always been a full-contact sport

-------------------------------

>nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle... I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time... general facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will &c &c. but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. he who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Norvell (11 June 1807)

http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-57...

I am disgusted with the NYT and media in general. I am a lifetime democrat, and in my opinion the news media has treated outside candidates like Trump and Sanders very unfairly. People should have information to make their own judgements, and not have the 'news' be a one hour infomercial for one candidate or another.

I am also unhappy with so many of my friends who only see one side of things, one side not respecting the opinion's of the other side. We need more civility and more respect for other people's opinions.

The usual narrative is that coverage of Trump and Sanders couldn't be more different, with Sanders struggling for attention while Trump received vast amounts of free advertising. There is a lot of truth to it, but, according to a study:

> Sanders’ media coverage during the pre-primary period was a sore spot with his followers, who complained the media was biased against his candidacy. In relative terms at least, their complaint lacks substance. Among candidates in recent decades who entered the campaign with no money, no organization, and no national following, Sanders fared better than nearly all of them. Sanders’ initial low poll numbers marked him as less newsworthy than Clinton but, as he gained strength, the news tilted in his favor.

And for Trump:

> By our estimate, Trump’s coverage in the eight news outlets in our study was worth roughly $55 million. Trump reaped $16 million in ad-equivalent space in The New York Times alone, which was more than he spent on actual ad buys in all media during all of 2015. In our eight outlets, the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s coverage was more than one-and-a-half times the ad-equivalent value of Bush, Rubio, and Cruz’s coverage, more than twice that of Carson’s, and more than three times that of Kasich’s. Moreover, our analysis greatly underestimates the ad-equivalent value of Trump’s exposure in that it’s based on only eight media outlets, whereas the whole of the media world was highlighting his candidacy. Senator Cruz might well be correct in claiming that Trump’s media coverage was worth the equivalent of $2 billion in ad buys.

It's an interesting read.

http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-...

What's the media supposed to do about Trump? Keep quiet about the outrageous thing he did today because they already reported 4 outrageous things he did last week?

Trump has received more media coverage because he has simply said and done more things that are newsworthy.

I think that's the rub, "newsworthy". He never really got in the news for the right things (if there were any I don't know).

After August, if he sat himself in a closet and never did or said anything (and that recording never was released) he would of won very easily.

Interesting Ctrl+F Sanders: 35, Clinton: 49, Trump: 70.

> Among candidates in recent decades who entered the campaign with no money, no organization, and no national following, Sanders fared better than nearly all of them. Sanders’ initial low poll numbers marked him as less newsworthy than Clinton but, as he gained strength, the news tilted in his favor.

This is revisionist history. I think the issue I and many of my friends have is that he did have organization and did have a national following but lacked the appropriate media coverage still. I can't comment on money but I'll concede that Hillary had more money based on the fact that they have essentially been raising money for her campaign for the past 10 years. Maybe, just maybe, Clinton had better poll numbers because she had more media coverage?

Anecdotally, I remember the morning commute that I decided to never give a dime of my money to NPR when Sanders' landslide win in NH was covered, but the panel all agreed that his campaign was a no go due to Hillary having the super delegates locked up...

You actually need less golden mean pandering from your media, not more.

Could the admins switch the link to the non-mobile version[1]?

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/homepage/new-york-times-op...

I feel that NYTimes is the only news organization that has been able to transition to the Digital Era. Does anyone else know of any other old-school news organization that nicely transitioned to the Digital Era?

Financial Times - http://ft.com

The Financial Times and The Economist have a shared history, though common ownership interest in the two publications ended in August of 2015. The fact that both papers are very high quality and have done well in the online era strikes me as not unrelated.

Though separate now (FT is owned by Nikkei of Japan, The Economist is now principally held by the Agnelli family, who founded Fiat, along with several other families including Cadbury, Layton, Rothschild, and Schroder.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/15/economist-beco...

NPR (http://www.npr.org/) seems to be doing ok - they have a good mix of online reporting, audio from radio reporting, special features for events such as the election, and a number of successful podcasts associated with their various shows.

"Alexa, tell me the news"

Cue well-polished NPR briefing

NPR is a non-profit that offers all of it's reporting for free. (Their income mostly comes from donors.) Their a bit of a special case since they're happy to lose money on their online offerings.

That's the thing. I don't think they're losing money on the online offerings. I think people pay by becoming donors and then use the online offerings.

Most of their donors are older and primarily use the radio.

Most, but not all.

NPR is actually in a scary position. Yes most of their money comes from donors, but they are not direct donations. Most of the donations go to the individual radio stations, who then pay NPR for their content.

This means that NPR cannot go around their stations directly to their audience. They simply don't have the infrastructure and resources to raise an equivalent amount of donations directly. And as a matter of preference they don't want to hurt the local stations. They like the local stations.

It puts major restrictions on their product strategy. Everything they do has to have a way to tie back to a local station, and drive donations to local stations. If they just send everyone to NPR.org, they will go out of business.

In this respect, the NYTimes is in a better position for digital. They directly own all their reader and customer relationships, so they have more freedom to innovate.

Is anyone else annoyed by NPR's ads for itself? Do all NPR stations run these things, claiming, "We're the only news source you need," and "We'll tell you everything you need to know."?

I'm unsure which NPR promotions you're referring to, but yes, every news organization promotes itself. Local news stations, cable news stations, traditional media, etc. all do it. Why would you expect them to not self-promote?

Even sugar cereals have to self-promote as "a part of this nutritious breakfast."

Do you not feel patronized when one news outlet claims to be the ONLY one you need? Part of being a responsible citizen these days is seeking out a range of sources.

Is this during pledge drives or just all the time?

I do find it interesting that they advertise in a backhanded way: "This was brought to you because of a generous donation from XYX Corp."

Can I ask what you find interesting about that? That has to be one of the oldest forms of radio/TV ads.

"This program is brought to you by -insert brand name, followed by slogan of the brand-".

These are short ads that run every day promoting drive time programming. I hope this is unique to my local station.

My NPR station only mentions how great they are during pledge drives, not normal programming. They do normal messages from sponsors of course.

Also, since it's radio (vs print or video), they can capture the driving to work market, which is gigantic in the United States (the US Census [1] has it at 85.8 million). The others would largely require your undivided attention.

[1] http://blogs.census.gov/2015/08/13/majority-of-americans-dri...

Good point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-listened-to_radio... reflects how significant that it.

1. All Things Considered - 13M weekly listeners 3. Morning Edition - 13M 6. Marketplace - 9M

Great point! I love NPR podcasts. In particular (and relevant to the HN community), I like From Scratch and How I Built This.

WSJ?

Although the WSJ has been firing people lately, I think they are doing OK, at least from a product quality standpoint. Perhaps letting go of some people is just the way to transition.

Suffering at least somewhat financially. Its reputation was completely tarnished for me when Murdoch / NewsCorp bought it.

The Washington Post is definitely rivaling them. They're doing very well now and they've got some really big digital initiatives going on inside.

Bloomberg

The Guardian?

Somewhat mixed, financially.

The Guardian have a massive endowment (£842 million), but have also been failing to meet costs based on advertising and subscriptions revenues.

FT have an article (search headline via Google in Incognito mode to read):

Guardian launches paid membership scheme https://www.ft.com/content/39ad0574-390d-11e4-9526-00144feab...

The Guardian has launched a paid membership scheme, as it seeks to narrow operating losses that reached £33.8m last year.

Given the size of the endowment, that's a 24 year burn-rate.

The Economist is doing pretty well. I've been a subscriber for more than ten years. Now I still get my copy delivered on Friday, but for a little less money (no more print copy), to my iPhone and iPad, with audio for every article.

Their Espresso app, a daily update of world developments, is also a great concept. For me it's a better way to get the news, than to have a constantly changing news feed app.

Loved it when I had a sub, may have to pick it back up.

Not sure if it fits what you consider 'old school' but The Economist has a very nice digital edition with non-intrusive ads and professional audio for all of their articles.

I don't think they've really gotten their footing financially yet in the post-print world. They have large, high quality operations, including digitally, but they haven't figured out how to pay for it all in a steady state.

The latest in a long series of articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/business/media/buyouts-wal...

I hope the traditional newspaper with deep, broad, daily coverage can survive, but I'm not sure they can. We may be left with state news organizations (BBC), donation supported news organizations (NPR), news organizations that do newsgathering for the purpose of informing investments (Bloomberg), and organizations with less ambitious coverage goals (any of the online news magazines). The wire services may end up being the last to go or they may carve out a niche even if the national papers of record can't.

The Times (London) is doing ok financially recently. It was one of the few to have a hard to avoid pay wall

>The Times and The Sunday Times, reported an operating profit of £21m for the year ending June 2015, up from £1.7m in 2014. Previously, the company had suffered a run of losses covering every year since 2002.

How about massive losses? I am not quite sure what you mean by 'nicely transitioned'. Their graphics are overrated. Packaging same old propaganda into lame graphics is not 'nicely transitioned ' .

Wikileaks revealed that the NYT was in coordination with HRC's campaign to publish flattering stories. I think the credibility of the news organization is over.

They survived the Judith Miller controversy. What is it about the HRC-NYT emails that ends their credibility in ways that Judith Miller didn't?

edit: I can't think of a good reason to downvote this question (please do explain), but I'll rephrase: the Judith Miller Iraq reporting was bad to say the least, and they got rid of her. In this case I am under the impression that the problem is a few isolated cases, but I'm not well educated and am possibly missing something. What about these emails makes this a sweeping issue over the whole organization, as opposed to a few reporters having abused their welcome?

Judith Miller and the NYT’s (and news media more generally) credulous Iraq War boosterism were much more damning. Most of the folks involved, either on the media side or the government side, suffered absolutely no consequence to their reputations.

> Most of the folks involved, either on the media side or the government side, suffered absolutely no consequence to their reputations.

I still cannot believe this. In fact, it's probably the single most poignant fact of the Iraq war. It shows us that the NYT was not outraged by the "mistake" but supported what was effectively a propaganda effort.

This is why I liken the NYT to America's Pravda. The stories it runs help to bolster the legitimacy of certain institutions and create PR and misdirection as needed to allow the status quo to continue.

Oh you mean unlike the login-wall they've put up for every article in the past two weeks? That open access?

Edit: I'm pretty mad that every NYT link I've been clicking for what has felt like two weeks has asked me to login. I was forced to finally make an account. Screw that. I'd pay if you gave me an option that made sense. I'm not going to drop $500+/year to subscribe to all the places I read from when I only read what is posted on HN and Twitter. You'd think Apple would at least help out here since they have it all nicely integrated on the Apple News app to handle subscriptions for them.

Then don't click on NYT links, or others that require you to subscribe. HN conveniently marks the source.

PWDR

paywall; didn't read?

I wish it didn't have to be that way. I like reading what the NYT publishes, just like how I enjoy Salon/WSJ/Forbes/WashPost/etc.. I just wish it wasn't "all or nothing". Why do I need to subscribe for $15-20/month so I can read the one article I really wanted to read from HN? I don't have time to sit there and enjoy that subscription, just isn't the kind of time I have, so could I just have like a lite version somehow that lets me pay for what I want?

Something like Brave, but I just wish it was more accepted.

Incognito didn't work for you?

Yep, like the LA Times, it looks like NYT is running this promo as a way to get people to create accounts and/or log in. Interestingly, I'm getting no registration request in Chrome, but I consistently get it in Firefox. I'm running different extensions in each, so it might not be the browser that is causing the behavior.

For the record, I don't mind paying for news, but I don't love the "freebie" tactic they're using here. If you want to activate/bolster your paywall, go for it. But don't try to cover it up with an election giveaway.

What's your opinion on free trials in general? Are they bad? Or is it bad in this case because it's associated to the US election?

Free trials are fine. But pretending that you're doing a public service by doing a free trial—at precisely the same time that you're tightening up your paywall is not my style.

But thinking deeply about it, I don't think there's much of a public service in running an election-related free trial. With 10 free articles a month, many people wouldn't have run into the paywall during this very short window (Mon-Wed). Either they're hitting the paywall either way, or they're not hitting it at all.

>I'm not going to drop $500+/year to subscribe to all the places I read from when I only read what is posted on HN and Twitter.

Yikes, all your reading originates from posts on HN and TWTR? Seems like that gives you a limited view of the world, no?

A more charitable interpretation is that they would not end up on nyt pages except via those sources.

In this case more charitable is also more accurate.

It does, but I'm the type that wants to read everything. I limit myself to what shows up. Not the best, but I have things I know I should be doing vs trying to filter out the signal vs the noise in all the different publications I want to read.

At the top of the HN page for the submission there is a [web] link. Right click it, and open in an incognito window. That will search the web for the article title, and will normally return the article as the first hit. Clicky that.

Didn't work when I tried. There was a post here on HN where apparently people posted the command to use wget and w3m to view the article.

So I'm still getting a login-wall clicking on articles on the front page. What's the deal here? Is this geo-IP limited?

I find it funny that people complain about paying for their news, when large newspapers for the longest time weren't (and still are not) free...

For clarification: I'm not against paying, I just want a better way to pay. I'm just not willing to pay $15-20/month when I rarely read what they publish unless it shows up on Twitter or HN.

And that seems like a reasonable request. FWIW I don't pay for any news subscriptions either.

As is the Washington Post http://www.adweek.com/fishbowldc/the-washington-post-is-taki...

Just an additional reminder that Amazon Prime members can get six months of Wapo Digital for free.

Devil's advocate: reporting on the polling numbers as they come in can cloud the decisions people make at the polls, and the entire process of trying to determine who's winning serves no useful purpose in daily life other than as pure subjective entertainment.

Normally I would say we should all just use online voting (edit: online registration & mailed voting) the way 3 states (Washington, Oregon, and Nevada) currently do. They provide real-time statistics on their voting results via their website. But at the same time there's those risks of security holes. For example, I took 30 seconds to look at Washington's voter registration website, and found this via Google: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ues5ma... This makes it appear as though some admin functions may have been accessible publicly in the past.

It is nice to get a look at their content management, though (http://weihelp.sos.wa.gov/help/support/_layouts/viewlsts.asp...) as we can see some of the behind the scenes operation like ticketing, bug reports, content, and other features and documentation. So from an "open & transparent government" aspect it's nice, but probably needs to be balanced more against how much information or access is given.

Washington uses 100% paper mail in ballots, not online voting.

Ah my bad, online registration and mailed voting which is displayed online.

No worries, I wasn't sure if you meant online registration or not. I don't think any state offers online voting (thank goodness).

Online voting is such a bad idea. It's too vulnerable to hacking.

Though I believe it's practiced in Estonia.

enough about all of THIS... Suffice it to say that the NY Times is a tool of entrenched power and serves as a pseudo-intellectual gatekeeper that is willing to publish stories based upon leaked information but is unwilling to stand-up and defend the sources of such information. It's willing to be like NPR and appear to be thoughtful, but won't actually do anything to change the status quo. With their International Herald Tribune arm it becomes all the more apparent that they are more-or-less a mouthpiece for the American executive branch: State Dept, CIA, DOD, etc. as well as the entrenched specific corporate agenda that's been masquerading as the public interest for over 60 years. That they have no credibility with regards to altruistic token gestures doesn't even begin to describe why I could care less about their crappy content that they seem so self-impressed with as to think merits payment. This is the Internet. I would think a publication like the NY Times could have figured out a way to transfer their same advertising-based print model to the net, what with minimal distro costs and all the rest of us doing so and what-not... very well. They shall remain the valued premise of a tiny market segment that is only shrinking. Good luck with that one.

The NYT always offers open access... you just need to disable javascript.

Another discussion I'd like to see come out of this election: the idea of information as a public good.

http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/japan/japan.h...

Neither the advertising nor the paywall/subscription models are serving to either provide the public with information, or to foster quality and relevant information. Both are in fact the problem.

Addressing an open-access model, with a tax-based compensation for authors and publishers strikes me as a vastly preferable model.

Yes. And tax advertising (or even all forms of communication, as there is 90% overlap) to pay for that.

How would you define "advertising" for purposes of this tax?

The president creates a new post, the ad czar, who browses the internet, clicking on all the ads. Every time they click, a tax is assessed.

But what about the Russians? They will double click! How can we keep up with that?!

Don't worry. I don't foresee much of an ad gap developing any time soon.

> How would you define "advertising" for purposes of this tax?

I would define it as all revenue from any for-profit publisher. This starting from the assumption that 99% of it is:

- reproduced from other sources without fact checking

- provided by PR firms and other interested parties

- actual advertisements or sponsored content

This powerfull spread of disinformation must imo be countered somehow, and I cannot think of any other way then let a democratically elected government tax all this and use the proceeds to fund a compensating force of actual journalists doing their job independently, for the benefit of society.

How is this not a suggestion that we nationalize the media?

The media is already effectively nationalized. What's needed are policies to end corporate influence.

When you have every newspaper, radio channel, and TV station owned by the same four or five companies who are running them as loss leaders to start wars and sell weapons, that's a major problem.

Politicians are the ultimate decision makers when it comes to weapons and war. You cant fix the problem by focusing only on media.

Politicians speak for their constituencies.

It is a suggestion that we nationalise the payment basis for media. Authorship and publishing could/would remain independent.

It's strikingly similar to the extant instances of mechanical copyright licenses, which apply to "cover" performances of musical works, in that:

1. Grant of licence is automatic (hence "mechanical").

2. Payments are automatic (handled through copyright clearance organisations, e.g., Harry Fox in the US).

3. The original author cannot deny the licence.

The principle difference I'm proposing is a base level of compensation based on a broad-based tax. Preferably indexed to wealth and/or income.

Previous discussions:

A Modest Proposal: Universal Online Media Payment Syndication: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...

Richard Stallman's "Internet Sharing" content syndication proposal: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard...

Content Syndication: Phil Hunt's Broadband Tax / Content Compensation Fund proposal: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vknhc/content...

Great, taxpayer subsidized click bait.

Even with a much simpler model, the publicly-funded BBC seems to be a better news source for me than my typical American sources.

>The New York Times is inviting readers to take advantage of its reporting, analysis and commentary from the lead-up through the aftermath of the 2016 election.

Aftermath? Somehow this smacks of already leading the narrative.

in what way? Are you referring to the slightly apocalyptic connotation of the word? Or are you suggesting there won't be a conclusion to the election?

Aftermath: the consequences or aftereffects of a significant unpleasant event.

Why is the election of a new President an "unpleasant event"? For some, it may not be. So, the NYT is leading the narrative already.

You also get free access if you just delete your cookies once you have reached the free article limit...

Same with financial times - ft.com Open access for election

Great move by NYT. Smart and generous.

How is that generous when it is very convenient and opportunistic for NYTimes propaganda efforts for their candidate?

  "propaganda efforts for their candidate"

You're confusing their Opinion section with their news coverage. Completely separate groups with no overlap. Though I don't blame you for not knowing. Its not obvious - and thats a problem.

This is your 2nd time posting the same comment?

Well the restrictions being lifted apply to both the news coverage and opinion section, don't they?

It would be, frankly, ridiculous for them to offer "open access" and have that actually include only news coverage and none of the opinion sections.

"You're confusing their Opinion section with their news coverage. Completely separate groups with no overlap."

You can't be serious. How people have not noticed that the NYT has blatantly turned into one big opinion section over the last 12 months is beyond me. Heck I was even going to write a quick side by side headline parser listing all articles pertaining to the three major candidates in 2016 alone to emphasize their ludicrous bias, but now I realize even that couldn't defeat the confirmation bias of their dwindling readership. In any event, I'll make sure to enjoy the free propaganda over the next few days indeed.

There's a false equivalency issue here. Trump shouldn't get a favourable headline just because Hillary got one. It isn't propaganda to point out that he is woefully underqualified to ve President.

What good are "propaganda efforts" on the day of the election? If that were the reason, they would have opened access without an account for a month leading up to the election.

I was expecting a 'Paid for by the Clinton Foundation' at the end.

Also, the LA Times is offering a free week (requiring registration).

Is that an admission that if people hit a paywall they don't proceed to pay for the high-quality content behind it?

NYTimes never again. Fuck you.

Check out Google too: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/07/google-will-display-electi...

Nice. Last time their exit polls were fantastically accurate.

Is it strange that I don't trust any electronic voting systems at all? I feel like without a paper trail, federal elections can be easily manipulated secretly.

They can be manipulated even with paper. Look at the absentee ballot scandal in Florida.. DNC operative filling out thousands of absentee ballots in secret rooms.

What scandal? If this did happen, we'd know about it. Googling around only pulls up results from exceptionally dubious sites, which in turn all seem to be based on the same trivially fabricable non-evidence.

Scandals like this do happen and do get reported:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force

The same NYT whose profit shrank by 95,7% in the last quarter because of the extremely biased reporting?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897406/New-York-Tim...

And the exactly same numbers by Reuters but with completely misleading headline as if everything was fine:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-idUSK...

Funny how the NYT now makes about as much profit as I do as a contractor. Maybe I should buy them and put their journalists to more profitable use, like for example letting them clean toilets or work the streets.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Does somebody dispute the fact that the NYT's profits are down by 95,7%? Or would somebody dispute that this company wouldn't be making more profit if it sent its employees to clean toilets or sell their bodies?

I believe I made here a sensible business case for saving the NYT.

You talk about bias, but then cite the daily fucking mail.

For people who aren't aware, most of the UK press is scum, and the daily mail is certainly among the scummier end of UK newspapers.

That's why I cite Reuters below which reports identical data. Profit fell by 95,7% down to about $400k.

They went from barely making a profit to basically breaking even, the 95.7% figure is very misleading.

> Revenue fell 1 percent to $363.6 million

Profit fell to $400k, there are many people that actually make this kind of money as employees.

This is very convenient and opportunistic for NYTimes propaganda efforts.

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