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Comment by tibaiiplus | Hacker News Reader

Writer of the article here. Totally get the frustrations with paywalls. Bottom line is feature stories like this take weeks, months, sometimes a year or more to produce. Sites without paywalls have to go for clicks (which are worth close to zero now that Google/Facebook gobble up most online ad budgets). If low value clicks are all you have, you end up like dailymail.co.uk.

If you want high value news, you have to pay someone a reasonable salary to report/write it.

Anyway, hope you enjoy and here's another fun part of the story:

The FBI office has conducted hundreds of briefings for companies on cybersecurity threats and economic espionage. It discourages people from using their regular smartphones and laptops when traveling in China and warns male U.S. executives to avoid “honeypot” espionage attempts by attractive women. “If you’re not a 10 in the U.S., you’re not a 10 in China,” officials say they’ve told the executives.

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I have stayed subscribed to the WSJ since you guys broke the theranos story. The non editorial sections are the best in journalism today. NYT political bias has seeped through every article wheras WSJ clearly separates political bias between editorials and news.

WSJ didn't break the story. Other people broke the story. That story was "broken" on forums all over the internet. A WSJ journalist just collated the story and wrote a book about it. And keep in mind the WSJ journalist who broke the story refused to criticize the reporters from forbes, fortune, etc who created the theranos story. I'd have more respect for John Carreyrou if he had the professionalism and morals to go after obvious bad journalism. But he chose to stand by the journalism's equivalent of the "blue wall of silence".

Lets not forget that elizabeth holmes and the theranos nonsense was built up by journalists. Lets not forget that she was the media darling of an agenda driven "journalists" who wanted to push a narrative rather than search for the truth.

Crediting the WSJ or journalists for the theranos story is like crediting an arsonist firefighters for putting out the fire they themselves set.

Lest we forget.

https://www.vox.com/2015/10/26/11620036/theranos-ceo-elizabe...

“If you’re not a 10 in the U.S., you’re not a 10 in China,” officials say they’ve told the executives.

Not true. If you're a 5 in the US, you're not a 10 in China. However, being Asian might well cost you a point or two in the US, depending on whom you ask. There are some weird cultural things going on in the US, in particular, manifesting as biases. I was raised in a place where we literally had to drive almost 50 miles to visit other Asian friends of the family. I have some perspective on this matter. Up until around 2011, it was not hard to find online assertions that Asian men were fundamentally less masculine and desirable, and it's still not impossible today.

Decades ago, I'd been called a "hottie." Strangely, the reactions I've gotten from women have varied tremendously -- more than makes sense to me. My conclusion after all these years, is that it had more to do with them than with myself.

My wife is from Fujian province in China. She has 4 degrees, including a PhD from Stanford. She used to perform Salsa dance. There's a video of her dancing in a gold sequined outfit looking like a starlet from the 60's. (Not public and which I'm not going to post, thank you.) She used to date millionaires, before I somehow snagged her. I've talked to her about these issues of bias, and my conclusion from those talks, is that, yes, there's some weird, pervasive "filter" in US culture, with regards to Asian men.

(I think it's in the same category of phenomena as the "Shiksa" attraction.)

There's also the thing where seemingly 90% of ads for luxury brands feature white people. If you're outside of SH/BJ, white, and over 5'10, you're a pretty interesting novelty. Definitely +2/10 at least.

I agree as a white guy. Asian guys have never been particularly well placed in most US media, movies, etc. and there is a stigma when white women date them - you rarely ever see it outside of places like SF and NYC.

I know for a fact my white female friends (at least in high school and college) had large biases against Asian dudes.

What's worse, it seems that many American-Asian women go for white guys instead of Asian men, though I have no idea why.

On the flip side, I believe I do get an extra few points with the ladies when I travel to Asian countries. I don't know if it's because they assume I'm wealthy (which I am compared to most in low wage Asian countries) or if it is just the foreign novelty.

And it's kind of a stereotype now where the unattractive American or British gent goes over to East / SE Asia to teach English (and pick up a girlfriend or bride).

I know for a fact my white female friends (at least in high school and college) had large biases against Asian dudes.

Thanks for this! I dislike identity politics when used as a bludgeon for the sake of power. However, many of the phenomena talked about are indeed real.

There's one Brazillian rom com, where the Chinese boyfriend was something of the "bad guy" or at least the punching bag. There's nothing about the character that's actually characterization. It's all about his being an Asian guy, who furnishes his apartment in a stereotypical "Asian" fashion, teaches martial arts, only ever wears his martial arts uniform, and makes gross noises in the bathroom. Wish I could remember the name of that movie.

And it's kind of a stereotype now where the unattractive American or British gent goes over to East / SE Asia to teach English (and pick up a girlfriend or bride).

It also works like this for Irish and Scottish guys with that "cute accent."

I work for a media company too that has been very aggressive when it comes to charging for our content and yes; quality journalism like this costs money and ads can unfortunately not support it anymore.

It was a good read! I appreciated your work!

tibaiiplus , Thanks for an excellent article.

Are you planning any follow-ups on this topic? If so, would you like to be contacted with possible leads?

Always looking for leads. You can hit me up on Signal 847-380-0751

Ha, good line.

Thanks for hopping in to engage here, where paywalls are met with hostility. I appreciate both sides of this argument.

But thanks especially for the reporting!

My pleasure. And btw: the best way to support the news is to share really good tips! Always on Signal for that as you can see from my Twitter handle: @rolfewinkler. ;)

WSJ is one of the very few news outlets that are worth reading now. Keep up good work. I am glad to pay subscription

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