Software Engineer Starts Unlikely Business: A Weekly Newspaper | Hacker News Reader

Software Engineer Starts Unlikely Business: A Weekly Newspaper

nytimes.com

289 pointscpete204 comments

Within social media I've found the greatest impedance to conversation with people of different opinions is that we stand in alternate landscapes of "facts". I cannot see the information that they see, which shapes their opinions. Each of our "timelines" are unique, and so each of our landscapes are unique.

Print media provides a common landscape. And that landscape forms the basis from which meaningful conversation between different opinions can grow.

How is print media any different? People get into heated arguments over the entries in encyclopedias, how they can agree on a common landscape, printed or not? Media is just a projection of people's views, so as long as there are different views, there will be different coverage of events inevitably. Actually, the only cases of "common landscapes" I can think of are these in the oppressed societies where media is a propaganda tool in the hands of government.

My small city is going through a minor scandal right now with the city council accused of giving preferential treatment to a developer while the neighbors around the proposed development are strongly against the work being done. Pretty common small city stuff, NIMBY, yadda yadda. We do have a local newspaper, and at every city council meeting the pro and con factions go to war either for or against the paper. The paper prints basic facts, which either side interprets as they will, and one side claiming the paper is biased towards the other side. Now half the city doesn't trust our newspaper.

Even one common source of facts can be skewed by personal opinion. The only thing the newspaper changes about the discussion is whose side of the argument the editor is on.

Just printing facts isn't unbiased -- starting with the selection of which facts to print. Facts alone also lack context. You might factually state "radiation from Fukushima has been detected in the US". That sounds quite alarming! So you need to add some context like "This is because detection tech is very advanced. The levels are very low and pose no cause for concern." But then someone will criticise you for downplaying things.

So the newspaper could very well be biased and skewed, just in how they present or don't present certain facts, which context they provide, etc.

Exactly. What I was getting at is that newspapers by themselves do not solve the issue of news dividing public opinion, they just provide one more point of reference. There's nothing inherently righteous about newspapers.

I think both parent and your Fukushima example argue for something else - that no matter how unbiased you are, someone will always inject their own bias into what you're saying, and then condemn you for it.

I agree. A lot of the complaints about "fake news" and everything aren't so much directed at actual false information being reported - but rather the selection or emphasis of certain facts over others.

An obvious example was Fox News vs. CNN during the weeks leading up to the election. Neither company outright lied about anything (for the most part), but both published headlines emphasizing an entirely different set of facts. Fox News was constantly blasting headlines about the FBI investigating Hillary's email, while CNN was constantly blasting headlines about Trump's sexual misconduct allegations, etc. Neither were really lying in any sense - but they both painted completely different pictures designed to elicit differing opinions/reactions from their readers.

Of course, if you want real fake news - that exists as well and always has before it became a buzz word. The National Enquirer has been publishing fake news for decades, and nobody cares.

In short: Bias is unavoidable. Selection of facts is itself a bias.

But Facts and Context should be separated very clearly, with big bold titles just as Articles and Comments are very clearly separated.

it's called inclusion / exclusion bias. as long as humans are involved there will always be bias.

Twenty years ago, I wrote a story that explained something then-current in the news, and I included the viewpoints of both IBM and Microsoft.

I went into two CompuServe forums, both of which had people worked up over the story. In one forum, I was accused of being biased towards IBM. In another unrelated forum, someone said I must have been bought-off by Microsoft. The same day, the same story, the same reported facts.

That was the day that I knew I'd become a success as a journalist.

> Print media provides a common landscape.

So does Hacker News. A major differentiating feature between Hacker News and Reddit was subreddits, and that has resulted in substantially different cultures (for better and worse).

This problem is captured in a succinct way in this piece by Mark Manson:

https://markmanson.net/everything-is-fucked

> Print media provides a common landscape

Only if everyone reads it.

Hope they find much success and build a model that can be replicated.

It is a sin how little effort is put into local news. It is far easier for large corporations to re-package the same national news into different markets, than it is to do good journalism at the local level.

Your local news affiliate on ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX mostly just repackages stories from other affiliates, or run something easy to cover stories like a house fire or inclement weather. This local coverage is MANDATED by the FCC to benefit local communities.

Want to know what you city council voted on this week? What bills your state senate has passed? What non-profits have done to benifit your community? Good luck. It is unlikely that they will cover it.

Wow. I would love a news media product that covered _exactly_ those topics.

(The closest I've found is MPR, Minnesota's local branch of NPR.)

There's little community blogs/papers here that cover that usually run by retirees and students though the real issue is having people around that can understand the gigantic legislation being pushed through city councils. Common here for thousand plus pages to get floated around nobody has time to sift through unless it's their F/T job to do so.

These days I've noticed they're getting even lazier than repackaging stories. They just put a few lines of text before and after pictures of tweets.

Blame the advertising-driven revenue model.

Human attention is the only currency the advertisers respect and are willing to convert into dollars. Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat command attention. So do online forums like this one. So do [to a lesser extent] televised sports and performances.

Local news is on the losing end of this battle.

> Hope they find much success and build a model that can be replicated.

I'm not sure Montclair is the best place to build a replicable model. It's a nice town, but it's also a pretty unique bubble (even compared to the rest of New Jersey). It might be a good place to incubate an idea, but any lessons learned there probably won't apply to most places across the country.

I don't know about that. As a fellow NJer, I agree on your assessment of Montclair, but this story is about a couple who got in touch with the community and wants to share knowledge in that community to help it grow. I don't see how that doesn't apply elsewhere, or how they're wrong in approach. Actually, I even believe the part about not in it for the money.

I always wondered why repackaging content is considered a bad thing. I feel like hundreds of thousands of hours are wasted by local journalists writing about national events, with nothing to add to the conversation.

Yes, Trump is important. But why does every local newspaper write their own article about everything he does? For every news item, there's thousands of articles on Google News, yet only 1-2 are worth reading.

To me, this seems like a huge reason journalism is having trouble. They're spending tons of time and resources just rewriting the same news stories, rather than embracing their strengths (local news; let WaPo/NYT/AP/BBC/etc handle bigger news stories).

Local news is the most relevant news there is, in anyone's life, anywhere!

Our focus on national and international news takes up too much of an unnecessary time and energy. On top of that, we spend ridiculously more time reading about what far away politicians have to say, or do.

Glad to see people from technology sector investing time and money in strengthening the local communities.

It sounds like you are privileged with the ability to ignore the policies that far-away politicians enact because they don't affect you. Not everyone is as lucky as you are.

I understand were you are coming from with a comment like that, but I would argue that the large majority of people read about and get emotionally invested in news stories that have no impact on their lives. Take, for example, the stories of refugees being taken in by European countries, and those of Donald Trump's view of healthcare. It's nearly physically impossible to be affected by those two things. We can think of plenty of such 'pairs' of stories that people get interested in which it's impossible to be affected by both. And beyond what marginal information you get to inform your voting preferences via those stories, it is pretty pointless to get invested in them.

I was under the impression that the new healthcare plan would affect a lot of people, especially the chronically ill. I remember a lot of panic in my social circle that my peers might have to rush marriages to get chronically ill partners under the healthcare of their employer, and the great gnashing of teeth about how something wonderful as marriage might turn into a desperate tool that many other people don't have.

I live in Hannover, Germany. I am physically impacted by both stories:

For obvious reasons by the refugee one;

And also by Trump's bullshitting with healthcare due to having multiple friends in the USA whose lives are directly and acutely endangered by him and his murderous troupe, which in turn impacts my ability to meet them again.

Murderous?

Pence particularly caused a HIV outbreak: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-pence-indiana-hiv_u...

And for the rest: Anyone who wants to remove Obamacare without having a more inclusive plan ready.

>Pence particularly caused a HIV outbreak:

I read the article, and I'm sorry, I do not think you know the meaning of the word "cause". He did not cause any outbreak.

Not providing help is not going to cause anyone to suffer. What causes people to suffer are other factors (for HIV, it's usually unprotected sex, careless intermingling of blood, etc). Refusing assistance doesn't cause people to die. The disease kills them.

Now if you make a case that Pence was directly involved in infecting them, then yes, he caused it.

Assistance is exactly what it is: It is help. My refusing to help someone does not mean I caused his misery. Nor is it punishment, another word often used in these situations.

While I disagree with Pence's actions, I can also point out false allegations made against him.

I said he caused an outbreak. Yes, he did not personally infect anybody, however he removed the testing, and he acted directly in delaying aid that would've kept it under control, thus allowing it to become an outbreak.

Being responsible for one's inaction is a thing, especially so when one is in a position whose job description it is to be responsible for such things.

If you're a chicken farmer and you fail to feed your chickens, then you did cause your chickens to starve.

E: Thanks for the reply though. It was fascinatingly insightful for me.

>I said he caused an outbreak.

And I still disagree. He refused to prevent one.

>Being responsible for one's inaction is a thing,

Yes, he is responsible for his inactions. Nevertheless, he did not cause an outbreak.

>If you're a chicken farmer and you fail to feed your chickens, then you did cause your chickens to starve.

I'm afraid not. I can be held responsible for not feeding them, but I did not starve them (unless I prevented them from getting food by confining them).

Sorry, but my goal is not to be obtuse or difficult. When this usage of the world causes problems with people sympathetic to your view, you can understand its ineffectiveness in convincing anyone of your perspective.

If I were organizing a campaign to convince Indiana voters not to reelect him (assuming he were not the VP), I would exclude people with your rhetoric. It will cause people to side with him more.

The reality of the matter is that as governor he has a moral obligation to keep all of his citizens as safe as possible. He, at one point, chose to reduce the safety of his citizens, and at another chose not to protect his citizens. These choices of his directly led to the outbreak.

Whether you are unhappy about this reality being stated is no concern of mine, since, as stated elsewhere, nothing i can say will actually have an effect on the situation.

I'm just a dude who's watching a country prepare to send multiple of his friends to the chopping block just because they had the misfortune of being born in a place where "socialist" is an insult.

>The reality of the matter is that as governor he has a moral obligation to keep all of his citizens as safe as possible.

And by that criterion, every governor has failed.

>Whether you are unhappy about this reality being stated is no concern of mine, since, as stated elsewhere, nothing i can say will actually have an effect on the situation.

So you are saying all this because...?

>I'm just a dude who's watching a country prepare to send multiple of his friends to the chopping block just because they had the misfortune of being born in a place where "socialist" is an insult.

I'm failing to understand your perspective. I'll ask the same question: You felt the need to write that because...?

In this situation, I'm not sure what the functional difference is between causing an outbreak and refusing to prevent one.

Let me walk through this (for my own benefit). People get HIV/Hep C from IV drug abuse. Needle exchanges are a way to get infected needles off the street. There was a statewide ban on needle exchange programs. Pence agreed with this sentiment and voted for public health funding cuts (2011). 2013, Pence is governor, and planned parenthood in Scott County shuts down. January 2015, outbreak happened, and cause was identified. April 2015, Pence allowed a temporary needle exchange in Scott County.

So this makes me think that, yes, Pence supported things that led to the outbreak. Inaction is still an action, is it not? But at the same time, he changed his mind (after 3 months, but better late than never) once he realized it was no longer gubernatorially (is that a word?) feasible to stick to his position.

If you think I disagree that had he not made those cuts this outbreak would not have happened, you are mistaken. If you think I do not hold him accountable for it, you are mistaken.

But people got sick because of drug abuse. He did not create the abuse. Even if I were to accept Pence's responsibility, it in no way negates their responsibility as well.

I can prevent accidental drownings in swimming pools by banning all of them. However, if I decide to lift the ban, inevitably people will drown. Would it be accurate to say I caused drownings to occur?

I can prevent a lot of drug overdoses by making everyone do a blood test before they are allowed to consume drugs (assume we could get instant results), and mandate that drugs can be consumed in only these facilities. If I suddenly decide this is not worth the money and defund the program, there will be more overdoses. Did I cause their deaths?

Saying he caused an outbreak is easy to point out as factually wrong, and anyone who is not of your stance is immediately turned off by it. Any argument based off of it is preaching to the choir.

I'm not saying that you disagree by any means. It's clear that you care deeply about this issue and oppose Pence's stance on it.

I definitely see what you're trying to say, and how we could all be a little better at being more precise in our wording.

humans have more agency than chickens

Its not the impact itself, but with activism people can influence local outcomes much better than national and much much better than international outcomes. Almost any one can go to City council meeting and let their presence know, and with enough patience can get audience of the council both in public and private forum. To do that at National and International level the costs involved are high and there is no denying you have fund your trips to DC/NY/London/Geneva/The Hauge etc.

That is the point, big fish in small pond vs small fish in an ocean metaphor.

Sure, i can do little to impact back, however the post i was replying to was claiming it would be impossible for me to be impacted by both. Yet i undeniably am. Also, being informed means i can at least provide my friends with appropiate emotional support.

>>I understand were you are coming from with a comment like that, but I would argue that the large majority of people read about and get emotionally invested in news stories that have no impact on their lives.

That's because most people care about those other than themselves.

For example, I'm not gay, but I care about gay marriage as an issue because I have friends who are gay, and when some state or country far away treats gays badly, it gets me worked up.

One can say the same about local politicians

You realize "privileged" in this sentence is a vacuous epithet and has no bearing on the term's origins in sociological criticism, right?

That is silly. You don't have to consider the situation of every single person on this planet to opine on an issue.

If the majority of issues were left to local politicians to determine based on their constituency, local news would be more relevant than it is. In the United States, the fact that the federal government now controls vastly more things than they did 100 years ago, means that national (and even international) issues affect local issues way more than they used to.

Local journalism should be able to do better than they are in the changing publication landscape. It's niche by definition: while I can get national news from a wide number of sources, and global news from an almost uncountable number, there are only a handful of providers of local news. It tends to require "boots on the ground". It can also be practically relevant in day-to-day life, more so than the more abstract issues of wider relevance.

What I don't need from my local and regional news provider is coverage of national and global issues; yet they keep reporting on them, probably because newspapers of yore were often the only provider of news for many people. That hasn't been true for a while.

Their subscriber income will be tiny according to their target of 6000 subs at $12 PA.

Their outgoings include 7 journalists and printing and distribution costs (currently they are giving away 15000 copies free every week, which they plan to reduce to 5000 per week).

I really want endeavours like this to be successful and would love to understand how they plan to make this a sustainable (non loss making) business. The traditional model is classifieds & local ads, but that's not been working for a while now.

In what sense is it not working? Layoffs don't mean something stopped working, they mean the business model couldn't support the same staff size as before. At some point the internet-driven "correction" in print media is over and it becomes a normal growing industry again.

Happy if you are saying that small operations like this one can be supported by a traditional model, but I don't share your optimism for the future of this form of media, unless they come up with a new business model that doesn't compete with digital ad dollars.

http://www.journalism.org/2016/06/15/newspapers-fact-sheet/

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

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/columns/how-did-newspapers...

I was toying around with a similar idea, but figured a local newspaper should provide local services -- hyper data-gathering at the local level. Like I'd love to see a dollar-by-dollar breakdown of where my [specific] property taxes are going, so I can be more informed when voting locally. Make it a special feature, and charge $5 per sub. Gets their $72k to $84k (say half your subs can't refuse @ $5) easy. (assuming i can trade one of those journalists for a data scientist)

I also think "local ads" needs a whole new approach, for a variety of reasons. You have local business associations shooting themselves in the foot every time a fellow business is not somehow advertised in any other member store.

Also, syndicate [free-ish] articles from bloggers who can help your community better itself. Also, extend into the schools - get a HS writer to report the sports there to pick up more subs.

OK, I'm not covering all the expenses yet, but that's just a few ideas...

I'm a journalist turned developer and I had a similar idea a while back. I feel local news orgs are missing a trick because aggregation is something journalists can do very well due to the nature of their job (pulling info from disparate sources, fact-checking etc). With so many sources of general data and info you can easily provide value by giving it local and regional context.

Btw - this a throwaway account. Having trouble logging in with my username carlmungz.

And that's how a big corporation (USA Today) dropped a niche and someone had the vision and the guts to take the gauntlet.

Local news are (probably) the last niche for journalism. People care about what's happening nearby - and unless you have a local newspaper, you'll miss that news or they can pass as fake ones.

The only problem I see is printing is cash-flow intensive compared to full digital. I mean, for paper you have a daily/weekly expense with a proper credit line/funded account with the printer. In digital "printing" cost is not zero, but scales better with higher audiences - which is not the case for local news unless you have "local" news from a big population cluster (which is probably served by bigCo's like Hearst, Knight Ridder, Berkshire Hathaway, etc..)

>The only problem I see is printing is cash-flow intensive compared to full digital. I mean, for paper you have a daily/weekly expense with a proper credit line/funded account with the printer.

On the other hand, with digital you have to spend money to advertise and market to your audience, otherwise it disappears. With print, you own the "platform" because you pay for the paper, ink, and shipping.

I agree distribution costs both for print/digital are non negligible (let's face advertising and SEO are forms of distribution in the online world).

But I am not sure digital should be the default way to go for journalism. Local or not.

In digital there are also personnel cost for setting up and maintaining infrastructure costs, and refreshing the front page every X minutes (no, it's not made automatically).

Even if you publish on a third party site (like Facebook) you still have to pay lump sum people to publish, promote, SEO, and A/B test landing pages...

... Is it worth for a 30-50K people audience? probably not unless you are thinking on the long run or you're making "evergreen" content...

... But this audience might be enough for a small newspaper printed in paper... even if the content is not "revived" every year/4 years by search engines.

If you are interested in printing your own newspaper check out http://www.newspaperclub.com/

I received their samples in preparation for sending out graphic design and photography promos and the quality is great.

Can second. Received samples last week. Pricing is OK but gets particularly attractive above 1000 copies.

One thing this article and the comments haven't discussed yet is how much the viability of local newspapers depends on the local real estate market. Take a look at your local newspaper if you have one, and I bet it's chock full of real estate ads. (Where I live, the Palo Alto Daily Post certainly is, as is the competing Weekly; example here: [1]). And it makes sense: the most relevant ads for a local population are matters of local interest, and for expensive houses, the ROI for ad-spend can easily make sense.

So I expect that a big factor in whether quality local newspapers can survive is the strength of the local housing market, (measured through e.g. median house price and yearly volume). As a practical matter, this means that only in relatively affluent places is local news financially feasible, (although the housing market isn't the only reason why that's the case). It also means that more people searching for property online may present a challenge for local news.

[1] http://www.paloaltoonline.com/morguepdf/2017/2017_03_24.paw....

I'm very happy this exists, but I feel like it's time for the underdog media to give up on money-making, and just register the paper as non-profit.

It seems like this developer isn't looking to make a profit anyways, and that move helps ensure he or a future owner has more barriers to changing their minds.

Not all valuable endeavors yield a profit-making opportunity.

As a resident of a neighboring town to Montclair, I couldn't be more excited to see a new local newspaper trying to keep the residents more informed. Needless to say, I spent the $12 to subscribe. If this goes well, I hope to see more papers of this nature popping up in my town and others in the area!

As a resident, Im so happy to see something so local and exciting on HN!

I think local newspapers are better placed to survive than national ones. Round here they send photographers to every community event and people love seeing themselves/relatives/friends/enemies in print. Also district court proceedings esp involving drunks can make for great unintended comedy.

Presumably this paper is aiming to be mostly funded by advertising because their subscription target is only €72K p.a. and they have a staff of 7.

I wish you were right, but for the past 20 or so years, national media has been less decimated.

That surprises me, I'd thought the drop in circulations was less severe at the local level.

I wish，but the news is just a another example of increasing monopolization in America. Economies of scale are a powerful tool against a shrinking market.

With so much noise online, there's definately a strong argument to be made for local newspapers like this, great job guys!

Interesting. I work in Montclair a couple of days a week. It probably is the type of town that could support this, but it's still kind of peculiar. The Montclair Times HQ was shut down - it's now a dialysis center. There is a blog of sorts as the article mentions, Baristanet, that covers local news in Montclair, although I have no clue how many people read it.

I would imagine that most people in Montclair read the NYTimes - perhaps it would make sense for the NYTimes to 'up' it's local coverage game in the tri state area.

> A subscription costs $12 a year, and he is aiming to sign up 6,000 subscribers.

That's nothing. Barely pays for basic business expenses. The potential in a market that size isn't even that great and there is also the cost to acquire those subscribers. And 6000 readers doesn't allow you to make any money from advertising at least not w/o taking advantage of the type of advertisers who don't understand media buying and aren't overpaying.

This looks like an amazing initiative - and shows an entrepreneurial spirit! As a side note, it's interesting, how many software engineers consider alternative careers for themselves?

Lots. I am considering starting a small-scale residential real estate development company and am actively in the process of starting a brewery, for instance.

There are other software developers that I know doing both.

I'm currently enrolled at Washington State studying wine making as a possible second career.

Is there a currently updated database of local papers by region? I honestly have no idea how many local news papers are available to my area. I know of at least four from having seen them at the market, but no place online to check for more. I am finding dozens of historical dbs but none current.

Edit: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/

I miss the morning paper, and I miss the pre-dawn sky.

> the animosity the Trump administration has directed at the news media has injected new vigor into a beleaguered industry.

I'm no fan of Trump, but leave it to the NYT to frame its industry as a victim. As though decades of increasingly partisan coverage had nothing to do with the industry's problems.

Trump's interactions with the media, and NYT in particular, is far worse than previous administrations.

Newspapers have been having (some self inflicted) trouble for a long time, but what Trump is doing is something new and very dangerous.

but NYT has seen a massive increase in subs following the election, so there really is no excuse

More dangerous than lying us into foreign wars that kill millions of people and bankrupt the country?

That's quite a high bar.

Who did that? What was the last war that killed millions?

I guess you don't remember the lead up to the Iraq war.

I believe the quibble there is that millions didn't die in the Iraq War.

s/millions/over a million/g

But that's still likely too high.

The truth is important. Getting facts wrong about wars can only help people who are pro-war by making pacifists look uninformed.

Well, how about over a quarter of a million bombs/missiles dropped during the Obama administration? If over half a million deaths in Iraq isn't enough, that number should be sobering.

Again, these points are well-made using the real numbers. I could only find 100k bombs under Obama. Can you cite your number?

When I last looked into it, there were over 20k most years (26k in 2016 alone). so more likely closer to 200k (over 8 years), been a while since I looked... In any case, it's a horrific number.

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

Estimates range from ~100,000 to 700,000.

The Iraq War was a mistake that sixty years from now we will be mocked and judged for, but be careful with words like "millions."

Ahh yes, just an honest mistake, and so long as only one million people are killed, not two, then we can promptly dismiss any concerns. Is that how it works?

I wonder if you think the NYT had a hand in pushing for the first Iraq war? How about in Yugoslavia? Panama? Libya? Syria? Or were all of those moral and noble humanitarian wars where the death and destruction was worth it?

Although the Iraq war is the best and most blatant example of the NYT's warmongering, it is far from the only one. All of these wars combined easily resulted in millions of deaths.

No, the way it works is that nobody should get away with lying just because they're calling out a bad thing for being bad.

>so long as only one million people

Nobody has claimed one million were killed. Stop trying to spread wrong information, it is the same thing as lying.

>I wonder if you think the NYT had a hand in pushing for the first Iraq war? How about in Yugoslavia? Panama? Libya? Syria? Or were all of those moral and noble humanitarian wars where the death and destruction was worth it?

Holy fucking non sequitur, batman. What does a media agenda have to do with a moral position on war? How is "NYT had a hand in pushing for" related to the question of whether your examples were "moral and noble humanitarian wars?" You can't just say a thing that's absurd, and then immediately assume they're true, so that you can jump to making a moral attack. Here's a great resource for you: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/eng207-td/Logic%20and%20Analy...

>best and most blatant example of NYT's warmongering

Somehow we started at outright lies about the number of deaths in the Iraq war, and concluded that the NYT is a warmongering institution with the power to mobilize the most powerful military on the planet at it's whim, and thus is responsible for every death caused by the US military throughout history.

Hey let's take it up a notch, did you know humans never landed on the moon and that Mark Zuckerberg's evil twin, Matt Zuckerberg, is running a robotic pizza factory that snoops through people's emails? Benghazi.

Yes, people have claimed over one million have been killed in the second Iraq war. And you can easily make an argument for the fact that the war has never really ended, thus if you include figures up to 2017 it is unequivocally over one million.

I'm simply pointing out that the NYT functions as a critical cog in the overall propaganda machine that provides cover for the establishment warmongering agenda. That cover, almost without exception, revolves around framing these wars as humanitarian wars that supposedly help the people and bring them freedom and democracy (by bombing the crap out of them). I'm sorry I didn't spell that out explicitly. NYT absolutely had a hand in pushing for all the aforementioned wars.

Finally, I'm not saying the NYT is controlling the military, it is obviously the other way around - NYT is the mouthpiece of the established powers. But this discussion is in the context of comparing what is more dangerous; an establishment mouthpiece propaganda outlet that provides cover for killing millions, or Trump saying some questionable things from time to time. As of right this moment, NYT's track record looks much worse to me. But hey, maybe you're on the side of people like Madeleine Albright who think that killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children through sanctions was totally worth it.

>people have claimed over one million

According to the Wikipedia article 2 people have linked to you, only Opinion Research Business survey claims it was one million. And only one million, not "maybe 2 million or more!". If you have evidence or other sources, could you please contribute to our collective knowledge by updating the Wikipedia page? You don't even need an account to do it and we're all guaranteed relative quality by editor review that way.

>And you can easily make an argument for the fact that the war never really ended

When you say "Iraq War" people are going to think you mean this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War which took place from 2003-2011. There's an article on the Iraqi Civil War if you want to talk about that, but it's a different thing. If you want to talk about Middle East action in general, ok, but as we go on you're going to be lumping more and more extremely complicated conflicts into your "This is the NYT's fault" argument, which is already tenuous.

>simply pointing out that NYT functions as a critical cog in the overall propaganda machine

Dude, this is an extraordinary claim. You can't just toss that tidbit over the wall and be like "FACTS!" You gotta support that. You haven't yet, that I can see.

>agenda

Extraordinary claim. Burden of proof (or at least argument) is on you.

>NYT is the mouthpiece of the established powers

How can that be true when NYT is critical of the current government? Are you suggesting there's a shadow-government that is opposed to Trump, and in control of the NYT as well as the US military?

>maybe you're on the side of people... who think that killing hundreds of thousands

Stop trying to do that. It's so fucking transparent when you try to derail the argument through personal attack via non sequitur like that. You want to talk about propaganda techniques? You're (attempting) to employ them as mechanically as if you've got the "Guide to Misinformation via Trolling on the Internet" textbook sat next to you.

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

Estimates appear to vary widely, with most in the hundreds of thousands range, but there's one estimate as high as a million deaths in the Iraq War (from the linked page):

"Opinion Research Business (ORB) poll conducted August 12–19, 2007, estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths due to the Iraq War. The range given was 946,000 to 1,120,000 deaths. A nationally representative sample of approximately 2,000 Iraqi adults answered whether any members of their household (living under their roof) were killed due to the Iraq War. 22% of the respondents had lost one or more household members. ORB reported that "48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance."

(full Wikipedia page on this survey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualt...)

The Iraq war killed over half a million, and led to conditions that were a direct cause of ISIS' rise, for Eris knows how many more.

I don't know how much you want to attribute to it overall, but the war was based on fake evidence.

I agree that the war was based on lies. I agree it was a travesty. I honestly just wanted to know if I was correct in assuming that 1) they were indeed talking about Iraq, and 2) that they were accusing NYT of causing that war.

Which, of course, the NYT played its part in fanning the flames of war.

NYT is still very war hawkish. Which wasn't so bad before when they were feigning neutrality. They were just a mainstream US paper pushing the 'company' line of their various connections in the gov. It was easy to look past.

But now that they've become more blatantly partisan (maybe as they infer here because it clearly sells more to be hyper partisan) it leaves me with an odd feeling that they are pushing back hard towards the Clinton-esque center left war-friendly surveillance-state Russian-boogiemen establishment politics that so many people (not just on the right) seem to be trying evolve beyond. At least the younger generations. And they say Trump is harking back to the old days...

After reading NYT daily for nearly a decade I'v moved to WSJ. It is much more expensive but I've been much happier reading it - as someone who doesn't care for either US party. I don't have to sift through vague connections to Russia or questionable accusations of secret white nationalism every time I read a political story about someone related to the current administration.

For example, I was just reading a profile of Donald Trump Jr. in NYT. Half way through the article they say he's been accused of making 'white nationalist' statements. Upon further reading it turns out to be because he made an off hand reference to 'gas chamber' in a random speech. So instead of making the obvious assumption he was referring to the form of capital punishment used in the US until the 1990s (and still used as a back up to lethal injection in some states), which is exactly what he claims to have been referring to, they decide to infer he was making some anti-semitic reference to the holocaust.

I am far from a Trump supporter but this type of weak partisan character assassination doesn't belong in a reputable paper like NYT.

So I'm not surprised to see a random swipe at Trump within the first few paragraphs of a non-political story... it's their shtick now.

NYT's opposition to Trump et al is not partisan, its self-interest (survival).

Its partisan hackery any way you slice it. They made their cake by stacking the deck for Clinton. Search NYT on wikileaks podesta emails. NYT had time to be fair after they lost the election. Instead they doubled down. Who cares what their reasons are - like Trump said, their intent is to deceive and spread misinformation for nefarious and anti-proletariat motives. Fuck em

So why did they spend so many column-inches on Clinton's emails, and so few on Trump's scandals?

GWB's first term average approval rating was 62% and at one point was as high as 90%. A lot of Americans have since found their opposition to these illegal foreign wars.

Hmm, where was the opposition when libya happened?

The antiwar left basically disappeared when Obama took office.

A commenter above says that it's a proven fact that Fox News is interested in nothing but propaganda, and the NYT is dedicated to truth, though they occasionally fail. When I look back on the Bush administration, and I think about how Code Pink was pushed front-and-center for 8 years by ABC/NBC/CBS, protesting the war(s), and how they absolutely disappeared once Obama took over, even though he materially continued the same policy in the middle east, I can't help but feel that every organization that is NOT Fox News was joined together in PRECISELY the same sort of propaganda that Fox is accused of. But, hey, I guess it's just me.

Hah, I'm the one arguing with those people too. People don't like to admit to themselves they consume the same thing they hate. But I'm rate limited because moderation of political discussion on this website is a joke unless you want to agree with everyone, so no more comments from me there.

That's a cheap and lazy argument, trying to deflect attention from the crimes of one party by discussing the crimes of another. They're both dangerous enough to kill you; both should be discussed as separate issues, not as a comparison.

I think it's technically the same party but you wouldn't know it by looking at them.

It was the OP who made the comparison - I was simply replying.

Give him time.

If there is no media around to complain when he starts wars, then yes that is more dangerous.

Really? I mean, it's not like the last Democrat president did anything to stop any wars. Or curb surveillance... or actually bring much transparency into government. All things he promised in his first campaign... I mean, constitutionally Obama was plainly against it, but I at least had some hope when he was elected he might actually do some of the things he'd promised. But no, more war, more bombs, more spying and surveillance.

It's not like any of this started with Trump, and isn't like any of it would really be stopped by a president for the other party, that served in the last administration over the department most directly covering spying and warfare.

How would you recommend Trump respond to the media when they publish things like this "dossier" back in January before the inauguration that alleged things like Trump traveling to Russia to rent an old hotel room Obama stayed in so he could hire Russian prostitutes to perform a "golden showers" show in front of him -- a "dossier" (makes it sound more legitimate right) which has since been debunked as a 4chan prank on the intelligence community:

[1] CNN http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intellig...

[2] BuzzFeed with source of "dossier" https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-t...

[3] 4chan talking about Rick Wilson + dossier back in november https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329

Now, NYT themselves did not run this story. But the vast majority of "main stream media" runs stories with a narrative - or as Trump himself put it - a "tone". They insist that Trump must be wrapped in controversy, and every article I come across from NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo all insist on including a negative tone; or at the very least, emphasizing facts that make Trump seem negligent, stupid, arrogant or malevolent. In my opinion, it's them who have forfeited ethics. Tell me, how exactly is Trump doing something "new and very dangerous"? How should he respond to constant negativity? Even he himself is not asking for positive propaganda - he just wants neutral, honest media reporting. He has told CNN in a press conference that he'd be their greatest fan if they would report honestly.

/pol/ thread != debunking. You should stop spreading propaganda and consider maybe not hitching your horse to a pathological liar.

First of all, the dossier was put together by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele and wasn't just some 4chan prank.

How do you suggest the NYT, CNN, WaPo react to actions that seem to come from a place of incompetence or malevolence? When Trump rolls out an unconstitutional EO that seemed barely vetted by the Attorney General's office, how should the NYT paint that in such a way that Trump is depicted as competent?

When Trump and Spicer repeat falsehoods that anyone with a pair of eyes can refute (inauguration crowd size) or that has zero evidence behind it whatsoever (3-5 million illegal votes, Obama wiretapping Trump), how should the WaPo react to these lies?

When the president's campaign is under investigation by the FBI for potential collusion with a foreign government, and Rep. Schiff says there is 'more than circumstantial evidence', how should CNN report this?

It's laughable and a little bit sad that people think that Trump is more honest than the MSM.

Lee Atwater taught us that if you're explaining, you're losing. Troll juijitsu is to provoke another screed.

Maybe ask what Trump stories NYT should be covering.

US Code 1182 (f)

Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182

Sure, the president has the authority to impose restrictions on immigration, but not by imposing a religious test, which would violate the establishment clause.

I agree but there is no religious test. The countries on the list are from Obama's State Dept recommendations due to terror threats.

You can criticize the editorialization of news sources without falling to outright blanketing them as "fake news" sources.

Trump has repeatedly claimed facts as true without evidence or just based on a claim by a singular news source sans evidence. It is worrying that Trump has repeatedly done this and then sought to discredit critical news sources by labeling them "fake". I'd wish the president to be above hypocrisy in the realm of "fake news". You shouldn't spew falsehoods and then criticize others for doing the same. Both sides are guilty of this, but I believe the president has a higher burden of responsibility than a newspaper or TV program.

I also believe that Trump has been guilty of generating BS moreso than the "legitimate liberal-leaning" news, but that's just me editorializing, so please leave it out of my argument :)

>NYT themselves didn't run this story

I'm not sure how it's relevant then, unless you're suggesting there's a conspiracy between CNN and NYT to destabilize Trump. Oh, you are. Carry on then.

>Every article... include a negative tone.

He is a bad president. Of course the media is negative about him.

>a dossier... which has since been debunked as a 4chan prank

Nope, wrong.

> He is a bad president.

I'm not saying he isn't a bad choice for President... He's only been President for a couple of months. In the course of 4 years, that's a bit premature of a statement.

What seems to be happening with education, and the pitiful healthcare bill... not fond of a lot of what's happening. Not to mention, there is zero need to expand military spending. I'm all for cutting spending, but expanding one of the biggest areas of the budget when we already outspend the rest of the world combined is asinine.

You can tank your entire presidency on a single decision. Bush JR did, relatively early into his career as well.

When the sum total of your bad decisions are as great as Bush JR or Trump, there's little you can do to negate that in the next 3 years.

Furthermore, my statement is that he is a bad president, which he is. Personal attacks on Twitter, regular vacations at taxpayer expense, deregulating climate change, pushing to remove healthcare from Americans, bad appointments. These actions are happening now and have not been rectified. Present tense, he is a bad president.

If he undoes all these things and does a couple good things, I will say "he was a bad president, then he became a good president." Currently, though, bad president.

1. The dossier wasn't some prank, and was proceeded by someone who, all things being equal, could be considered a somewhat "reliable" source. It's production and existence warranted investigation.

2. The dossier existed. It was floating around for months. Reputable organizations refused to publish the actual document, because it could not be verified sufficiently to warrant full coverage. CNN approached the potential story by talking around the document. NY Times just didn't publish it.

3. The Press is supposed to be relentlessly aggressive towards the administration, and towards power in general. Every administration has to deal with this, from one section of the media or another. Any time the press has abdicated that balance, bad things happen (see Iraq war).

4. An anonymous comment on 4chan doesn't "debunk" anything.

emphasizing facts that make Trump seem negligent, stupid, arrogant or malevolent

An absolutely perfect role of journalism, because he is.

Trump could turn state's witness, rat out all his friends, before he get indicted.

Then he could sell his story for a big fat advance.

Personally, I hope Trump chooses to fight. Pass the popcorn.

Yes. Sadly, he's getting a lot of traction with it too.

Mainstream media reports from a big business point of view and it almost never reports on itself or its parents critically.

People get this. Trust is low and Trump is exploiting that reality to great effect.

Today, we have people growing lost, confused, seeking more and maybe better information. What they are finding from indie efforts ranges all over the map.

It's reasonable to say that isn't a good thing either. Though I will also say it is at least a mild check on an ugly press machine in play today.

I am very rapidly becoming a fan of people funded news and Media.

In the USA there is almost no reporting and commentary from the economic left point of view, for example. I lean strong left, but I also don't see that as a blanket answer.

I do see it as the basis for a more complete discussion, and we really need that right now. I know I need to understand others better and they me so the conversation can get somewhere good.

This isn't happening.

Not all of our problems are going to be resolved with boardroom and or bumper sticker politics.

For perspective, our conservative peers could say the same thing about social issue reporting, and they would be right.

The product of this is a very dangerous polarization. Ideologies are being championed as means to ends, when the better role for them is as a basis for policy ideas we can use, combine and apply toward common goals. There are a few big needs, like health care, where we have solid majority support for doing good things, necessary things, yet no real ability to accomplish them.

Our press does not address this at all too. It's all process and horse race type drama, not a meaningful look at both the state of things and clear desire to make progress on them.

A more inclusive discussion, sans so damn many triggers and set pieces would bring those goals to front and center. All political sides need this.

We need it as ordinary people too. Badly.

Some 20 percent of us have few worries about money. Another slice, maybe a third tops, must be super careful, but are OK. The rest are in big and growing trouble! Super expensive, long term trouble. Decline of a great nation type trouble.

As a nation of people, that growing unrest is not good. We will pay really hard for allowing so much to get stalled, bogged down, ignored. Even those of us who are economically secure will share in that cost. It won't hurt in dollar terms like it will most Americans. It will hurt in terms of our future, environment, social laws, many norms.

These kinds of things take lifetimes to come back from, if we even can

It began somewhere late 70s maybe 80s too. A look at government and politics prior to that time saw the process working. Governance happened and it was net progress. Our history is littered with ugly politics. The better times seem to be associated with a more functional press.

Those better periods were not the best possible, but were livable.

Today?

Cluster fuck. And the press has a lot to do with that as does the Internet and social media presenting different views to everyone based on some ideas of what we think people want to see. It's hard to get a sense of where people are really at outside our circles and rough class and demographic.

This should be front and center journalism. Yet, it isn't.

Remember earlier, simpler Internet? For a while we all saw most of the same things. People exploiting that and the need or value in curated content brought us a better information view in some ways, but a worse one in others.

This idea of a weekly paper, if done in a reasonable, equitable way may just hold the potential for establishing that "we are all people and just want better for us and ours" conversation. It could unify people and foster cross class, cross gender, etc... type conversations.

It could also do a lot to help understand one another better and punch through so damn much vilification going on too. When we have an opportunity to talk to one another, sans all the bullshit, we invariably find the others have good intent. Nobody wants so many others to hurt and struggle out of hand.

So many of us do not have those conversations. Lack of venue, opportunity, fear, judgement all play a role here.

I'll be watching efforts like this. We need to keep trying. The growing mess us quickly approaching the unrecoverable and regrettable.

Almost none of us really want that, but it's gonna happen, unless we can somehow have a common conversation that can get us back to the idea of just governance.

Nobody should get all they want, but all of us should be getting the things we really need. There is more than enough for it to happen too.

Their coverage hasn't been increasingly partisan. It has been increasingly infotainment directed. Regardless, the major news media in this country is laughably neglect in serving in any capacity like they should.

So....your argument is that the media wasn't really doing it's job for the past 5-10+ years? Does the media only do their job when they get someone in the white house they don't like?

I see no evidence of the latter. They simply haven't been doing their job, period, regardless of who is in the White House.

I believe a large part of the issue is that newspapers' neutrality has been part of their downfall, not their partisanship. Now it's easy to read something you always agree with. Local newspapers no longer have the captive audience of "this is the only paper that will deliver to your front door daily"

I think it's slightly more nuanced; as the mainstream media moves to the left, the swath of views they fail to accurately represent grows larger (moderate conservatives and centrists, for example). Those whose views aren't being represented fairly are more likely to give up on MSM entirely and choose to support their own partisan media. This is all conjecture of course.

As though decades of increasingly partisan coverage had nothing to do with the industry's problems.

When someone gains an advantage for their point of view by consistently associating it with professional, reliable journalism, I consider it an advantage well-earned. A point of view that isn't compatible with that advantage doesn't deserve it.

Much worse than having a point of view is trying to avoid the perception of having a point of view, which leads to vapid, passive, easily exploitable schlock journalism.

I seriously dislike it when people use this sort of false dichotomy.

Look, you can be biased and have an opinion and still treat dissenting opinions, and the people who hold them, with fairness and understanding.

It doesn't happen, but it CAN. It's the 3rd option between "has no point of view" and "crafts a narrative around their point of view".

I'm not sure how you expect people not to construct narratives around their point of view. If you read the Wall Street Journal and New York Times stories about the same event (or the Financial Times and Guardian stories about the same event) you'll see slightly different stories told with slightly different subsets of the available facts. That's what having a point of view is all about.

I'd rather get the Times point of view from the Times stories and the WSJ point of view from the WSJ stories than ask them to converge on exactly the same dry list of uninterpreted facts (if that were even possible.) They can try to do justice to other points of view, and it certainly helps their credibility when they're able to, but I wouldn't depend on it. Not even if they had the purest motivations. It's better to have a diversity of voices than to have one dominant voice doing a ventriloquist act.

Also, I think people ask for "fairness and understanding" but want a great deal more; they want to feel that their ideas are held in equal esteem, when in reality ideas can't all have an equal share of social approval. If I went to a singles bar with Ryan Gosling, I could justifiably ask to be treated with equal civility, but not with equal enthusiasm. No amount of civility or journalistic detachment can enable us to forget that different ideas prevail among different groups of people with different levels of wealth, power, social prestige, and cultural cachet.

> ... told with slightly different subsets of the available facts.

What makes me worry about humanity is the fact that you said that with a straight face as if we, as a society, can't (or shouldn't) demand that they tell the story with the same set of facts.

Treating the other side with fairness and understanding MEANS acknowledging all the facts.

> ... than ask them to converge on exactly the same dry list of uninterpreted facts

This is a false dichotomy.

> Also, I think people ask for "fairness and understanding" but want a great deal more;

And you just twisted my words, which doesn't need to happen in order for us to have a conversation. But you chose to do it anyway because you're not interested in a conversation, you're not interested in fairness, you're interested in pushing a narrative.

And it sucks that people like you exist.

> avoid the perception of having a point of view, which leads to vapid, passive, easily exploitable schlock journalism.

AKA merely reporting the facts and events without introducing someone's uncalled for opinion, which shows respect for the audience by trusting them to draw their own conclusions.

Funny how "easily exploitable" journalism is somehow worse than "directly and blatantly exploited" journalism.

The internet has arrived. Institutional media outlets no longer direct the public discourse. Has this improved our ability to sort fact from fiction? Quite the opposite. When the 5th estate is in crisis, democracy is in crisis. You don't know what you got 'til it's gone.

Despite what we like to think, with every declassified document released we learn that what we thought were facts in the past were really just fictional stories being pushed upon us by the media.

Our ability to see this deception admittedly means that finding the truth will be a bit more messy than the "truths" we've been presented with in the past. But far from this diminishing our ability to discern truth, it is helping us by forcing us to return to critical thinking.

If this means democracy is in crisis, then democracy requires deception to operate.

I've got facts you can spin into whatever dumb shit you feel like believing. How we choose to direct civilization is less contingent on facts than beliefs. When our belief systems are as badly fractured as they are we can't do much of anything, we're a clusterfuck nation. Even our best people, armed with the best facts available can't predict the future, but a bad plan is better than no plan at all. Nobody is even on the same page anymore.

Our world is officially too complex for anyone to understand, and you expect the average voter to to engage critical thinking to positive effect? We just failed at that catastrophically. It's completely unrealistic, there's no evidence for it.

I agree with you. I think I'm just more optimistic is all.

I thought the loss of classified ad revenue due to sites like Craigslist was the big problem combined with taking on too much debt in the 80's?

I think most newspapers do a pretty good job.

I don't think it's partisan so much as incurious and sycophantic as access journalism has evolved. Celebrity culture includes way too many people, including in politics, and the NYT has not defended itself against this trend as much as it should have. The media is much less oppositional these days (see: Broderism).

> I'm no fan of Trump

Noting that it appears to be SOP to always make everyone aware that someone doesn't support Trump if the statement that they are making seems to make it appear that they might support Trump or are not part of 'the resistance' to Trump.

I don't like making these disclaimers, but if I don't put them, people seem to think I'm making a partisan statement. With the disclaimer, the number of knee-jerk vitriolic comments goes down and people seem more likely to debate my post on its merits.

I can't stand this false equivalency.

You are conflating the entire media landscape with the New York Times. NYT has its bias, but you are effectively saying that NY Times is just as a responsible for the destruction of journalism as the likes of Fox News and Breitbart.

You misread my post. I made no such equivalency. The industry as a whole created its problems (the NYT included); the NYT is just well-known for framing those problems as the effect of conservative rhetoric.

During the election cycle they openly defended their bias, and have continued to produce extremely biased coverage since then. They are just as responsible as anyone else. If their bias is acceptable, why is bias from Fox or Breitbart unacceptable? How is NYT meaningfully better, if they present an equally biased perspective, just from a side you agree with?

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/business/balance-fairness...

What made you think I agree with all of their bias? I specifically said they have a bias, just like everyone does. But there is also a huge difference between individual reporter bias, the entire bias of the paper, the bias of the editorial board, etc. Just like WSJ op-ed pages are not the same as the rest of the paper.

I am fully aware NYT screwed up stories, they generally back a globalist tilt, they screwed up the Iraq/WMD story, etc. But I also know they are, overall, committed to the truth. And Fox News and Breitbart are committed to propaganda. To compare the two is an absolute joke.

> What made you think I agree with all of their bias?

Your defense of it.

Their entire organization is biased, just like Fox or Breitbart. Why are they "committed to the truth" when conservative outlets are "propaganda"? Do you think conservatives view NYT/CNN bias as "truth telling" or "propaganda"?

Personally I view Fox and Breitbart as being on a scale of propaganda with Brietbart near the extreme end and Fox somewhere in the middle. But while I don't always agree with The Wall Street Journal or The Economist I don't think they're anything like Fox/Breitbart. There's a difference between bias and propaganda.

> There's a difference between bias and propaganda.

Then actually define it, and provide examples of them being literal propaganda. Otherwise the discussion is just a political version of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

No, facts exist whether you like them or not.

I think this sort of demand seems reasonable at face value but really has a reductive effect on the conversation. I don't have a catalog of infractions I keep to draw from for Internet debates so I can either compile a list that you might ignore or nitpick apart or just let the conversation die here. I don't need a list or carefully defined criteria to come to the conclusion that a news organization is a propaganda outlet because I'm just some asshole nobody who's just trying to make a point that it's not some party or philosophical allegiance that determines how I view a news or media organization.

Might want to give this one a shot.

http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

Is there a specific section you think I should focus on? I think his point about agreement being sort of brief and shallow while disagreement forces you to explore ideas that haven't is oddly relevant here. Despite the fact that we're disagreeing even a lively debate between us would actually be shallow because "is Fox News/Breitbart propaganda?" is a dead horse beaten until it's dust.

You might be a special exception but I assure you that I, like most people, wouldn't be adding additional insight at all. I'm more than happy to let other people do it, I just don't see the point in participating. I just wanted to let you know that thinking it's just some liberal bias against conservatives that makes people think Fox and Brietbart are propaganda is pigeonholing these folks into a very convenient "idiot" bucket. If it was that simple they'd think that about every conservative media/news organization.

You should be able to define the words you use, when you want to dismiss conflicting viewpoints with them. Your inability to define what propaganda and bias mean makes the conversation impossible. You have no bar, other than your feelings, for what makes something propaganda. Which is stupid. I just wanted to let you know that thinking it's just some conservative bias against liberals that makes people think NYT and CNN are propaganda is pigeonholing these folks into a very convenient "idiot" bucket.

It is challenging to draw a bright line between journalism that contains some bias and outright propaganda.

I'm willing to put forward a simple test: does the source publish retractions and corrections?

I would guess that the NYT does and Breitbart does not.

> It is challenging to draw a bright line between journalism that contains some bias and outright propaganda.

And that's why it's really stupid to dismiss outlets you don't like as propaganda.

You're arguing with an example of the blindness that resulted in the public's trust of the media hitting an all-time low and Trump getting elected. One kind of person reasons forward from principles; another kind of person reasons backward from desired results, i.e. that the ends justify the means. It seems that they are simply unable to recognize their own bias, a kind of willful self-deception.

Fox is committed to maximizing advertising profits... as for Breitbart, well, that's a little different.

Pretty sure the NYT is also committed to maximizing profit. Otherwise, they wouldn't paywall every article.

My comment is mainly in that "conservative news" makes money... a large portion of the population is conservative, and was under-served by the commentary from other news outlets. Now I think it's too far the other way, but businesses are, and should be allowed to adapt or die.

I would presume that a lot of people in the media may or may not believe what they are spewing... as for the management/administration of Fox News, I would say it's likely more about money than political views.

Look at the numbers: Something like 50% of Fox News viewers believe ridiculous falsehoods, like Obama wasn't born in the country or Saddam really had WMD. There are studies showing that Fox News viewers are less informed than no-news viewers.

There are no such studies for the NYT, editorial page bias notwithstanding.

Those demographics aren't necessarily a reflection of the degree of bias in the media coverage. More educated/well-informed people could just have a preference for one form of bias over another.

How is that different from the liberal left to believe trump is a sexoffender for saying "grab them by the p"?

There are just as many angled stories in the mainstream media and they are actually worse because they claim to be objective.

Because he's literally describing committing assault. Also, this is what happened:

Trump, unprompted: I like to grab women by the pussy!

Women: So yeah, Trump grabbed me by the pussy.

Trump & conservatives: Bitches be lyin'

no he isnt he is describing what you can do if you are a celebrity, but thanks for proving my point.

Dude. He's describing what he does as a celebrity.

Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

He is describing some of what he does as a celebrity in general terms and some of what you can do do. None of that is for a specific incident.

Furthermore if you are going to call what he describes sexual assault then all men who lean in on a women and start kissing them are committing sexual assault. Any guy who tries to get his hand up under a womans shirt is committing sexual assault.

You forgot the part of "they let you do it". Thats not sexual assault.

This is sad. You're lost buddy.

If I sucker punch you does it mean you let me do it?

How on earth are those two things the same? You are comparing a violent act which a pass at a woman. You are basically making any person making a pass at a woman a sexual offender unless they ask if they can kiss her. Again proving my point

You don't spend much time around women do you. How is grabbing a woman "making a pass"? I feel like I'm talking to wannabe Don Draper right now.

It is a pass if she don't mind (ex. because you are a celebrity and she is enough into you) it's sexual assault if she do mind and don't want you to do it and you keep doing it. You never kissed a women without asking her? You never snuck your arm up her shirt while making out with her? You always ask before you have sex if you can penetrate?

The logic you seem to have bought into is completely out of bounds with reality. These things happens everyday and aren't sexual assault, but because Trump does it suddenly it is. What an amazing logic.

I would love to see you prosecute someone for saying those things with nothing more than that tape recording.

And keep your ad hominem to reddit. This is not a discussion about me but about something he said or whether it constitutes sexual assault which it obviously do not.

Keep going man, this is great. How would you feel if Don Trump kissed you and grabbed your dick without asking?

That depends on whether I was into celebrities doing that to me to be with them which quite a lot of women are.

> if they present an equally biased perspective

Where has it been said that they're both equally biased?

I don't know anything about American news, this is all from an Australian perspective, but if a right-wing paper runs fairly standard stories and occasionally has an opinion piece on stricter border controls; and a left-wing paper runs page after page after page of manipulative appeals to emotion full of terrible anecdotal "evidence", nobody would suggest that they were equally biased. The same works in reverse. You don't get to declare a Facist state and openly call for the execution of all Muslims because your rival paper ran an investigative story into refugee camp abuse and then go on to claim an equal bias.

How much coverage did they do of Trump's scandals as opposed to Clinton's emails?

Is that supposed to be a point? Look it up.

See https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-ele...

Overall the media gave Clinton a bit more (by percentage) positive coverage in the general, while Trump got more if you include the primaries. However, Trump got much more coverage overall. The negative coverage of Clinton spiked during the last two weeks of the campaign.

The very fact it is held to a better standard means it is more responsible when it mucks up.

If NY Times is the vanguard of journalism, would you not find it atrocious the precedent they set in partisanship and misrepresentation of the people they are supposedly reporting to?

You should read more carefully. He said they're framing their industry as the victim.

The NYT could be saints and that wouldn't change the fact that the industry they're in is what it is now. And if they can't identify that and instead just say that industry's the victim, weberc is 100% correct.

From Hunter S. Thompson's obituary for Nixon:

"Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism -- which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful."

I don't necessarily disagree with you (or agree with Thompson), but I always liked that quote.

I do think "Objective Journalism" is a hard line to toe, and I don't think the NY Times does the worst job with it. Sure, the paper is clearly anti-Trump. My perspective is that this is only really a problem if they fabricate evidence. As long as they're presenting the world as they see it, it's hard to complain.

I'd apply that equally to right wing publications.

That's a good quote indeed! My issue isn't that the media isn't sufficiently objective or that NYT in particular dislikes Trump; the issue is that the media generally is abandoning objectivity as a virtue to strive after, and they're beginning to see it increasingly as an impediment to their (mostly leftist) political activism. One could argue that this new political bias is motivated by an increasingly powerful leftist market, and I would agree to an extent, but given the political composition of journalists (90% are registered Democrats IIRC), I can't imagine they fought too hard to oppose the changing tide. There's a lot more to this of course, and there's fault to be shared on the right, but I haven't the time to opine on the entire landscape.

Unfortunately, you're only opining, and falling for the oldest data error in the media book, in that you think they're biased against your side. Equl numbers of moderates and left-leaning people think that the media are biased to the Right, from their coporate advertising masters. You'll have therefore to bring some data to the table to persuade anyone here.

> given the political composition of journalists (90% are registered Democrats IIRC)

Guess you missed that?

> You'll have therefore to bring some data to the table to persuade anyone here.

www.newsbusters.org Help yourself.

I'm definitely opining, and I'm not a conservative. I'm a moderate liberal. I'm also skeptical of your claim about liberal and moderate perceptions of the media. I'm of the impression that claims of liberal bias in the media isn't controversial even among the far left.

I think you're right that the "modern" perspective seems to be: "bias is unavoidable, so be clear about your bias." This is why it's not considered wrong for newspapers to endorse candidates, or for the NY Times editorial board to write a weekly admonition to the new administration.

I tend to agree with you on some level. I don't necessarily think it's possible to be completely unbiased, but I'd still like it to be the goal.

Reuters is pretty good for that sort of thing (for instance they don't use the term terrorism because they see it as a value judgement).

> Reuters is pretty good for that sort of thing (for instance they don't use the term terrorism because they see it as a value judgement).

I would hope that even journalistic objectivity has some limit, to the point that one could call the slaughter of innocent people wrong. That's a value judgment that should be made. If not, then it would seem that they could not complain if their offices were attacked by evil people, because that would be making a "value judgment" on their actions. It seems like some kind of hypocritical cop-out.

Besides that, Reuters is no longer a bastion of objectivity. Their coverage is definitely left-leaning. And since they are a wire agency and their stories are reprinted around the world, it makes their bias even worse, because it seeps into other publications.

The perspective is simply that it isn't the job of the media to say what's right or wrong, just to report what happened. They're not saying "these aren't terrorist attacks" only that the word "terrorist" is editorializing, which isn't their job.

My perspective is that it's unclear to me what you gain by describing something as a "terrorist attack" as opposed to just an "attack." I'll make up my own mind whether it's a terrorist attack or not.

I find Reuters fairly unbiased, although at the end of the day individual editors and reporters all have individual biases. If you have a recommendation for a less biased news source than Reuters please share.

I think you have a good point. On the other hand, it seems like a reasonable definition of "terrorist attack" would be something like, "an attack which causes or intends to cause terror," and by that definition, it seems obvious that it fits many attacks in the news. For example, a mugging resulting in murder is not a terrorist attack, but driving a truck through a crowd of people during an event while shouting a religious phrase is.

So by the same token, what is gained by describing it as "an attack" instead of "a terrorist attack"? I'm not sure it matters so much either way.

What I think may be more interesting is what the choice of description may imply about underlying bias.

I feel Reuters is biased toward the left, but that's just my interpretation. I wish I could recommend a less biased source, but it seems that they're either one way or the other. Maybe we (as a people) should just recognize that and read accordingly. The real danger is that we don't recognize bias and think that certain sources are impartial when they are not, because that leaves us vulnerable to manipulation.

There are a lot of attacks that some people would call terrorist attacks that others would not. Take Dylann Roof for example I personally consider his actions a terrorist attack. But I have had right wing people I know say that he's just mentally ill, which I feel is reductionist. If Reuters called Dylann Roof a terrorist, there would be people claiming that it has a liberal bias.

>I would hope that even journalistic objectivity has some limit, to the point that one could call the slaughter of innocent people wrong. That's a value judgment that should be made.

Why? What value does it add? As long as they provide the information that innocents were slaughtered, what's stopping you from adding the condemning language in your own head?

Aspiring to journalistic objectivity, I think you have a point.

My impression is that objective journalism is effectively dead, and that the choice of words used to describe things like this likely gives insight into journalists' political bias.

Besides that, what is objectivity? Is it pretending to be a hypothetical, non-human, universally objective observer that views the loss of human life no more important than a meteor smashing into a random asteroid? Is it required that one not condemn the slaughter of innocents to be considered objective? From that perspective, is murder even wrong?

Interesting questions to think about.

> call the slaughter of innocent people wrong. That's a value judgment that should be made.

That implies they'd have to start calling US drone strikes "terrorism" when they kill people who've not been identified as combatants in countries with which the US is not at war.

Then you'd probably call them even more left-leaning.

I haven't said anything about drone strikes, and I don't know why you have assumed what I think of them.

> Sure, the paper is clearly anti-Trump. My perspective is that this is only really a problem if they fabricate evidence. As long as they're presenting the world as they see it, it's hard to complain.

I mostly agree with that, but it does rub me the wrong way that the New York Times tends to smuggle its views into its reporting, all the while maintaining the false pretense that it is being entirely Objective outside of its opinion pages.

In contrast, The Economist is absolutely anti-Trump, but it makes no pretense to the contrary. It owns the fact that the paper as a whole has a free-market, classically liberal point of view, and as a result it's much easier for me to read The Economist's criticisms of Trump with a straight face. (Not that I have any trouble generating my own criticisms of Trump, mind you.)

Does every NY Times article mention President Trump?

Nope. (A casual glance through their front page finds several articles that do not.)

I think that was rhetorical.

Indeed. But it was also ridiculous. So I went with the equally ridiculous, overly wan, and dry response.

Kill 'em with kindness.

On a more serious note, I don't see Trump's mentions in the article to be unwarranted at all. On the contrary, they're very appropriate given his divisive rhetoric about the news media, and I believe that the author was very measured and reserved with his reporting.

It is not like he went out of his way to take a jab at him. The references were all on topic and informative.

Nothing really to complain about here.

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