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Comment by mcknz | Hacker News Reader

One of the things I've learned about The Hill's opinion page is to background check the contributor -- seems like just about anyone can get an article there.

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Did you background check this contributor?

What did you find?

Here's her bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Peek

To sum it up: Wall Street (oil) -> law firm -> Treasury -> Fox News contributor. She's also Chair of the board of trustees for FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC).

She is not in tech.

Does that matter? The author is speaking on behalf of the shareholders (pension funds, mutual funds etc) who are supposed to be fiduciaries to clients that expect their funds to be invested responsibly (read hyperbolically as: not in companies that in any way threaten democracy). Sandberg architected the FB revenue model and as such should probably give reassurance that money will keep flowing to Facebook.

First Google result is a link to Fox News, and an article titled "Liz Peek: Census 2020 – Liberals, get over it, we must ask about citizenship!"

People can agree or disagree with that, but The Hill does not appear to have a consistent editorial stance that is separate from individual authors.

I have seen moderate contributors as well as more extreme partisan ones.

"Liz Peek: Census 2020 – Liberals, get over it, we must ask about citizenship!"

This is enough to ignore the author and bury the article. Anyone that uses the term "liberal" or "conservative" as a way to drive a wedge between Americans in order to offend, distract, and "win" are not worth the time.

First of all, a lot of people will self-identify as liberal or conservative, which usually lines up with whether or not they tend to support Republicans or Democrats. They're not incredibly loaded terms.

Secondly, writers almost never get to choose the title their piece runs under. You'll notice that often the headline of an article doesn't /quite/ seem to match the content.

Agreed on both counts. Although your second point just seems to feed into the idea of not just rolling in "journalists" into the ignore category, but news outlets if they are actively involved in this BS.

For the actual quote, it comes from here: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/03/28/liz-peek-census-20...

"Liberals are outraged over the Trump administration’s decision to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census."

That's the first line from the article, which clearly pits liberals as being the problem here while implying that conservatives automatically disagree (or in this case, "you are on the right side if you agree with me."). It's basic manipulation. People that behave this way are not worth the energy. They just get in the way most of the time.

For all of the aforementioned reasons I consider The Hill to be trash, even when I agree with an article's sentiment. I don't follow publications, I follow editorial policies, and The Hill appears to have none.

>One of the things I've learned about The Hill's opinion page is to background check the contributor -- seems like just about anyone can get an article there.

Or background check any facts they present in making their case, then form your own opinion.

Of course. I've just been confused in the past at the wide swing of opinion, having noted the objectivity of The Hill's news reporting.

Not to nitpick, but isn't news supposed to be objective and opinion not?

It seems kind of weird to wander into an opinion piece, then seem put-off that its author might be biased. Yes, it is very likely that if you check the author's background, then you will find threads that are consistent with the opinions expressed in an article that he/she produces. In fact the article itself is an expression of that background.

Again not being a pedant here. Just don't understand the admonition to check the background as the basis for dismissing a writer's opinion.

Yes, but I suppose it's a matter of expectation. When I read NYT or WSJ or Slate or National Review I will get a fairly consistent message.

We don't see a lot of extreme partisan publications linked in HN, probably for good reason. Just wanted to note that although The Hill is not on the MSNBC/Fox spectrum, its editorial content may well be.

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