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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Before pulling out the pitchforks, I'd encourage you to investigate with more than just one article. It may very well be everything you recommend is warranted, but be aware that once reporters decide on the narrative for a story, they pull out quotes and data in a manner that specifically supports that narrative.

I know I've been burned in the past by just reading one side of the story and getting angry before understanding the entirety of what happened.

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I typically read both the NYT and the WSJ, and they very often agree on news stories. When I subscribed to the WSJ, I was expecting to be blown away at how the NYT was sticking me in some sort of liberal media bubble. But it turns out, they both pick the same topics and both relay the same facts.

Even the opinion columns are the same -- "I support the position of the political party to which I am aligned, no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT."

With respect to the NYT/WSJ having a similar point of view, I've heard it described as a "cosmopolitan bias". That the professional journalists are mostly college educated, live in a large city, have a sense of professional ethics, are exposed to people from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities and all sorts of other markers of class and socio-economic background.

I grew up in a tiny rural town in Ohio where that certainly isn't the case and currently live in the suburbs of Virginia where that urban lifestyle feels very far removed.

This is less a political description and more of the urban/rural divide in viewpoint. Case in point: I've had multiple conversations with people locally who reacted with horror at the idea of taking a Lyft/Uber ("Don't do that you'll get killed.")

Yet they will ride an ATV for fun, which actually will get them killed.

"mostly college educated, live in a large city, have a sense of professional ethics, are exposed to people from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities"

You're making "cosmopolitan bias" look good, when it's not. It's still bias. Having a better education and being exposed to more cultures than the average person does not guarantee that you won't be a closed-minded, fundamentalist, holier-than-thou jerk.

Source: country-raised metropolitan-educated journalist

It doesn't guarantee it, but it makes it more likely.

I will assert the opposite, based on decades of living in both major metros and backwater towns. Your biased comment just drives the point home.

Major metros will make you colder and slower to trust strangers, but you'll know a lot more about the world. There's simply more variance in cities. Living your life in a backwater town won't disabuse you of being trusting and friendly, but your preconceptions about the rest of the world won't be tested either.

Travel to other countries is better than either to broaden perspectives. Seeing the world from multiple points of view (sometimes literally) is the best way to eliminate bias.

I strongly disagree that metros will make you know "more about the world." They will let you know more about a specific bubble that is just as narrow as the bubble in any small town. You can travel the world and run into people who believe in exactly the same things you do and have read the same books and seen the same movies. In fact, it's hard not to.

I remember when I was a grad student, they would pair me up with a different foreign student each year. They were all cookie cutters of each other. One from Germany, one from the UK, one from Spain. They all immediately came here and complained about U.S. gun control and how the U.S. was too religious (Bible belters!) and the same tired old things that someone from Boston or NY would complain about. It got so bad I wrote down all their complaints on an index card and just handed it over when they started with their monoculture rants. It doesn't matter which nation in the west you are from, the elites form one gray goop of groupthink.

I do recommend travel, but go into the countryside or talk to people with different life values from your own, not just different stamps on their passport. Talk to a mormon. Talk to a devout Catholic. Talk to a rural minority from China. Talk to someone without a college degree from Spain. Go visit the a traditional village in Japan. Hang out with the cabbies in Holland who play chess all the time. There you will see diversity. Flying from Paris to London to Berlin and visiting hip coffee shops or tech seminars -- you might as well just stay in San Francisco and go out to a bar.

I agree that there's a cosmopolitan bias, but I'm extremely skeptical of the claim that journalists writ large are motivated by a sense of professional ethics and are exposed to people from a variety of backgrounds.

I don't think I saw a single journalist apologize for pushing the Trump/Russia misinformation, the NYT and WASHPO haven't given back their pulitzer for reporting on it, what's most telling is that after the report dropped, the journalists pivoted to impeachment - it's clear the Russia angle was more about having a stick to beat the dog than anything else.

Additionally, I think people in cosmopolitan areas are probably more ignorant about life in rural areas than vice versa. This is a pretty partisan source, but look how some journalists reacted when asked if they knew anyone who owned a pick up truck (one of the most common vehicles in America): https://www.dailywire.com/news/12138/journalists-lose-it-aft...

I'm sure journalists have 'diverse' friends/social circles, but I'd wager that they're all in agreement w.r.t culture war topics - how diverse is that really?

LOL. The NYT opinion page is likely less liberal than the WSJ, they're just disguised better. At least the WSJ is fairly upfront where they stand.

If you actually want opposite views, maybe step away from the NYT.

From a social perspective the WSJ and NYT have pushed similar narratives in the past. Eg the pewdiepie thing.

I have been following this case for some time in various sources, and there is essentially no way to spin this as other than a determined and long-running attempt to pervert justice. Deliberately falsely imprisoning someone is the moral equivalent of kidnapping in my book.

Prison is worse than kidnapping, when you are kidnapped you can grab to the hope someone (the cops?) will rescue you soon, when the state does it that hope is non-existent.

You're also allowed to defend yourself when kidnapped. No such thing when the state does it.

Which should be the other way around... :-(

Are you saying you should not be allowed to defend yourself if you are kidnapped by an entity that is not the state?

Do you have any other sources you can post? In particular, the article mentions how the OCME claimed they had done studies on the reliability of this DNA technique, but in fact hadn't.

If that turned out to be a complete, bald-faced lie, I would expect that there would be an independent investigation and, if those statements were made in an official capacity, that someone would be in legal jeopardy.

They stated they had proven this controversial technique worked, then it came out it was never tested. That seems pretty clear cut to me.

People always make claims like "oh, innocent until proven guilty!", "Let's just wait for the evidence!'.

But apparently we are here right now, where the state was proven guilty, and they paid a million dollars to someone for their crimes, and the evidence does show that something bad happened, and yet people are still ignoring the evidence.

Yeah, no. They paid a million dollars to someone. That is good enough evidence for me to condemn them.

> But apparently we are here right now, where the state was proven guilty

You just posted something that is completely false. The state settled a lawsuit. Large organizations settle lawsuits all the time because the cost of litigation can be huge even if the organization wins.

Even your leading statement that "People always make claims like "Let's just wait for the evidence!"??? Please, we should only be so lucky.

A million dollars is a million dollars.

In the court of public opinion, I can judge them guilty.

It is impossible to hold people accountable otherwise, because they will always just settle and escape the political consequences.

Okay, great, but if it is found to be a cut and dry case, you agree a firing and bar from public office are the correct course of action?

I think very few things are "cut and dry", but if it was indeed true that the claimed study was never done, and if the superiors knew this and lied about it, and then retaliated against this scientist for attempting to bring this fact to light, then yes, I absolutely think they should be fired. Note that "bar from public office" is not even a potential sanction in this case - the superiors are not publicly elected officials, and saying "no public government is allowed to hire you" is not a punishment that exists or is legal in the US. Depending on the level of knowledge, I'm guessing there are some criminal punishments available, but that would obviously be a very high bar in terms of determining culpability (IANAL).

IANAL, but not that high, actually, esp. if the feds want to get involved and can find a legit way. Any attorney general could be a serious problem but if the feds involved, I'd not want to be their legal rep.

Before pulling out the pitchforks,

And yet -- Occam's Razor, and lengthy enough observation about how things operate in various city agencies in NYC prudently suggests:

At the very least, do keep those pitchforks ready at your side - and freshly sharpened.

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