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Comment by brookside | Hacker News Reader

I have disliked her ever since being influenced by this gawker screed some years back:

http://gawker.com/5162532/marissa-mayer-googles-biggest-fail....

Subsequent reporting has hardend my opinion: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened-wh...

I have tried to examine what role gender plays in my visceral dislike for Marissa Mayer. I hope it is a small one. I give myself some consolation that I recoil almost equally when reading any news coverage of Travis Kalanick.

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Small consolation, then. The activities which took place under Kalanick's watch -- sexual harassment, greyballing, the Waymo trade secret case -- are much more reprehensible than what Mayer has done. I think gender plays a big factor for many people's opinions of her.

The comparison with Steve Jobs is particularly telling. Steve was notoriously cruel and difficult to please, yet he is much-loved as a visionary. Women are given a very hard time for being unlikable, no matter how talented they are. Granted, she was no Steve Jobs. Despite being in a glass cliff [0] situation, she was far more successful than any of the Apple CEOs prior to Jobs' return.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_cliff

Interesting. I had not heard the term "glass cliff" before and I think I quite like it.

The difference is that Jobs succeeded.

Meyer didn't do anything bad, she just didn't turn around Yahoo. She landed the plane though.

Jobs succeeded, but plenty of male rescue CEOs failed without drawing the sort of ire that Mayer has.

She was also a celebrity CEO, basking in the exposure of being touted as Yahoo!'s great new hope. She didn't push back on any of the publicity or press then, so it's only right she maintains exposure regardless.

I'm not a fan of her, but Gawker is not to be taken as a serious news outlet at all. So you may want to re-read that with a big grain of salt.

Gawker isn't some tabloid. Sure it wasn't the best but without looking at the article you're just assuming it has to be taken with a "big grain of salt".

You should be weary of everything you read to some extent and try to make sure what you're reading is valid. NYTimes and The Economist (I enjoy both of them just making a point) both did horrible reporting for the Iraq War. I assume you would consider them serious news outlets.

> Gawker isn't some tabloid.

Almost spit out my coffee.

The difference is the NYT and other actual journalism outfits strive to report fairly and have standards they hope to achieve. Gawker did not. In fact the standards they held themselves to were deemed illegal by the courts, and when the courts told them that their journalistic standards were illegal, they attacked the court and doubled down. It's no wonder they were sued out of business.

100% tabloid. They had no journalistic integrity beyond "lets get more clicks" and were not afraid to break the law or ignore the truth to do it.

> Gawker isn't some tabloid.

Yes, they basically are. Just in case you are confused why your comment is getting downvoted, it's because they absolutely should not be considered a valid news source.

They [1].

Should [2].

Not [3].

Now I'm sure you're getting ready to bring up other outlets again, which may I remind you was not the point of my original comment or this one. We're talking about Gawker and only Gawker's reputation. Other outlets have other issues I'm sure, but it has been proven time and time again that Gawker cannot be trusted.

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/ceas-take-on-ces-gizmodo-prank-ban...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollea_v._Gawker

[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/past-controversy-at-gawker-me...

Right but what does have to do with this particular article that wasn't linked to?

But yes Gawker is pretty bad. Maybe I should've said "Gawker isn't as bad as pure tabloids, at least some of the time".

Side note: I don't seem to be downvoted. I'm guessing my comment has been going up and down in votes then? When can you see other people's karma? I see you're karma is a couple hundred above mine.

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