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Comment by catacombs | Hacker News Reader

Factual accuracy is the cornerstone of the profession.

In reporting out a story, it is the journalist's responsibility to obtain factual and verifiable information. People are the center of the story, and using their real names adds credibility to the story.

Now, there are circumstances where reporters use pseudonyms for sources -- mainly to protect victims of sex crimes -- or anonymous sources entirely. The latter is constantly debated among journalists. However, the consensus is using anonymous sources is necessary when all other avenues of getting someone on the record is exhausted or the story is so explosive that people close to the information are willing to shed light on an issue so long as their name is not used in print, mostly from fear of retribution, which is more common than you think.

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Using anonymous sources to relay secret information like government insiders is very different from public pseudonymous writers. 'Scott Alexander' is of interest only as 'Scott Alexander'; he is famous for writing as 'Scott Alexander'; if you want to find criticism of Scott Alexander, you will find it by asking people about 'Scott Alexander'; and he blogs about general topics with reference to publicly verifiable things like scientific research, as opposed to focusing solely on his anecdotal experience; what does knowing his real name add or let a journalist verify? Does it somehow let you verify that he does in fact blog at SSC...? (Yes, he sometimes talks about his psychiatric patients, but like all psychiatrists, he blends and tweaks stories to protect his patients, and knowing his real name is John Smith gives you no more way of verifying said stories than when they were written by 'Scott Alexander'.)

It’s even worse than not having his name being irrelevant. By forcing the issue the NYT has now become the story. Whatever piece the NYT originally wanted to write is now subsumed by their own actions.

I am not a journalist, but I have to imagine that “don’t become the story” is pretty high up on the list of journalistic ideals.

When it’s someone the NYT feels they want to protect, they will go to any length, even jail time, to protect them. It’s very hard for me not to conclude ill intent on behalf of the NYT in wanting to draw fire toward SSC based on Scott’s ideology. Asking the question “why this story now” in the current hyper-partisan and cancel-rage environment brings me to one obvious conclusion even though Scott himself doesn’t make such a leap.

> doesn’t make such a leap

While he doesn’t directly state it, I got the impression that he felt the motive for doxxing him was that very reason. I may be reading between the lines too much, but I got that impression none the less.

> what does knowing his real name add or let a journalist verify? Does it somehow let you verify that he does in fact blog at SSC...?

Correct. Anyone, whether it's an individual or group of people, can be "Scott Alexander."

What does it add? It makes the story more credible under scrutiny.

I don't follow your logic, maybe I'm missing something. Let's say I publicly claim to be Scott Alexander. The owner of slatestarcodex with the email address scott@slatestarcodex.com also claims to be scott alexander? Doesn't the latter claim carry far more weight? If so, why is the personage relevant?

> Let's say I publicly claim to be Scott Alexander. The owner of slatestarcodex with the email address scott@slatestarcodex.com also claims to be scott alexander? Doesn't the latter claim carry far more weight?

It's just an email address. It could be Scott or it could be someone else. Yes, common sense would say it's Scott, but the reporter would have to still prove it's him. If you claim to be Scott, too, that will also need to be checked out.

Many people will take that information and run, but if you're writing for a national outlet, where accurate reporting is everything, your editor will say, "Yes, that might be Scott, but how do you know? What proof can you provide? If we get called out for a fact error, can you refute that claim?

How does providing a last name make his authorship of the blog more credible though? And how does publishing it help? I don't see how the reporter or the readers have any way of verifying that the blogger of SSC has a last name matching the one from the article.

Forgive me for the repetition you are about to see, I'm attempting to apply a bit of formality to the reasoning in question:

The Scott who posts at slatestarcodex.com is the Scott who is scott@slatestarcodex.com.

Therefore, the material Scott when attempting to pin down Scott in the context of slatestarcodex is scott@slatestarcodex.com.

Human X out in meat space could or could not be Scott, but that much is immaterial, as scott@slatestarcodex.com has been shown to be directly linked to Scott Alexander the blogger as a means of contacting him.

Thus I ask: what better proof could one have that scott@slatestarcodex.com is Scott Alexander, author of slatestarcodex?

> Thus I ask: what better proof could one have that scott@slatestarcodex.com is Scott Alexander, author of slatestarcodex?

From an editor's point of view, that's not enough, assuming the reporter has not done any form of reporting through interviews, public records and other methods.

I think you've missed the point. The point is that even if Scott were in fact a conglomerate of twenty people, Scott's writing is still the same, and is what draws people to the blog, and is ultimately why there's any story to be written at all. Nobody, but nobody, cares about the actual human originator(s) of the posts; it's the persona who matters.

I have not missed the point.

The story is about the blog, yes, but a portion deals with the _person_ or _people_ behind it. And that's important.

Ah, I see you're from a different culture to me. I gave up reading anything that looks like mainstream news, and am much happier for it, in part because I wholeheartedly disagree with the mainstream news's founding sentiment which you summarise as "and that's important".

Agreed, the author who writes under a pseudonym to protect himself should definitely be part of the story. We definitly talk about Scott Alexander, the pseudonumn everyone knows to be connected to the blog.

I'm not sure why though, the NYT, would need to know the name that is purposely never used.

If you really need the name sooo bad, then just don't dox him and drop the article. That's perfectly fine.

As long as they don't dox him everyone is cool.

If they can't write the article without doxxing him then they should just drop the article.

Whatever they do they shouldn't dox him. And if they can't write the article without doing so, then they shouldn't write it.

> Anyone, whether it's an individual or group of people, can be "Scott Alexander."

So what? The story isn't about who Scott Alexander is. The story is about the blog. Anyone can go to the website and read the blog (or at least they could before the NYT pulled this screwup). If the NYT wants their story about the blog to be credible, they just need to tell the truth about what the blog says.

> So what? The story isn't about who Scott Alexander is. The story is about the blog.

It's about the blog and its author. It's like writing about a controversial book without any mention of the author. That's not possible.

> It's about the blog and its author.

The author's persona on the blog, yes. That doesn't mean the author's real name needs to be revealed.

The author's name is irrelevant to that story, because the story is about the author only insofar is that relates to the blog, which is written under a pseudonym. In fact, it's actively confusing to bring anything but the pseudonym into this.

Is it necessary to reveal J. K. Rowling's real name in order to write an article about her controversial views? I think not.

Funny you should mention that:

> A Warning is a 2019 book-length exposé of the Trump administration, anonymously authored by someone described as a "senior Trump administration official". It is a follow-up to an anonymous op-ed published by the New York Times in September 2018.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Warning_(book)

By using his real name, readers who know that name can get more out of the article. Imagine if he is actually a state senator, or a minor celebrity. The reporter here isn't doing the difficult calculus of "does revealing his name do more good than harm" but is instead relying on company policy. Alternatively the reporter has done the calculus and are using policy as a shield. "Nothing personal, it's just business"

Let's change the setting to Weimar Germany, and the subject is a prominent Jewish blogger. Still think it's ok to expose his real identity? "Just business"?

The reporter knows perfectly well that Scott is not actually a state senator, and that he is a minor celebrity... as 'Scott Alexander'.

So is it safe to assume that the NYT always refers to Jon Stewart as Jon Leibovitz? Mark Twain as Samuel Clemens?

Maybe one could make an argument for a stage name or pen name being different (and there are many of those), but could Scott Alexander not also be considered a pen name?

Having worked in a tv newsroom before doing IT (so I could see all the reporters' real names), roughly 90% of the reporters used pseudonyms for their professional work. Not sure about the rate for print/internet media, but I'm sure it's still pretty high.

NYT frequently uses anonymous sources, even in cases where it doesn't seem to be necessary. Search for "sources familiar with the matter" +site:nytimes.com for dozens of examples per month.

The difference is presumably that those sources keep feeding them interesting information, so they have to respect their anonymity to avoid jeopardizing that relationship. Scott is only good for one story, so they can treat him however they want.

Presumably there are many other one-off sources that would see this behavior and then not talk to the NYT, so I’m not convinced that explains it.

The Globe and Mail, a newspaper that I have a fair amount of respect for, frequently changes names to protect sources, the subjects of articles and interviewees who aren't willing to be named. They say in the article that the name has been changed. It doesn't detract from the article at all.

> In reporting out a story, it is the journalist's responsibility to obtain factual and verifiable information. People are the center of the story, and using their real names adds credibility to the story.

IMO that doesn't apply to a situation like this. By definition, whoever answers email sent to the address on the SSC blog is the author of the blog. It doesn't matter if that person's "name" is Scott Alexander or Santa Claus or SillyBob5319. The piece the NYT is writing is about the blog, not about the specific, identifiable person who writes it. Knowing who that person is does not add credibility to the story; the credibility is already asserted by the fact that the person who controls the email address behind the blog is talking about it.

To your point about "verifiable information": the only verification needed by a hypothetical reader of this perhaps-never-to-be-published NYT article would be 1) visit the blog; 2) find a contact email; 3) send email asking "were those actually your words quote in this NYT article?" The person's name is irrelevant.

I think what you’re missing is that news stories like this are designed to connect the abstract (ideas in a blog) with real people. Many/most newspaper readers are interested in other people, relationships, who is doing what, and personal connections.

The readers don’t care that there is a controversial (or radical or not) blog on the internet, they want to know if anyone important is related to the blog and whether they should try to gain influence with said people or not (by aligning or distancing themselves from said people, depending on their own connections). For example, only if the author is named can they know whether he/she is a reputable practitioner at a prestigious institution (who can thereby give influence or be vulnerable to controversy), or maybe just a random doctor in a rural town (can be safely ignored).

So for people who rely on networks of other people, such as many political, corporate, and governmental sub-cultures, the NYT gains credibility by naming names and placing people in context. In other words, the NYT is a mainstream product and service, it’s interests are perhaps not most aligned with the pseudo-anonymous world of tech and ideas that the SSC blog and HN itself appeal to and cater to.

Given that "Scott Alexander" is a semi-pseudonym, and that the "real" person behind him isn't famous, I don't see how any of what you wrote really applies. Referring to him in an article as "Scott $HIS_REAL_LAST_NAME" in the article isn't going to give anyone any more of a connection than as "Scott Alexander".

And the NYT doesn't even need to mention whether or not it's his "real" name. It's just a name. I use scare quotes because a "name" is explicitly whatever someone wants to be referred to as. The guy who writes Slate Star Codex is Scott Alexander, full stop.

I don't think tech culture is at issue here; I doubt newspapers had any issue referring to Samuel Clemens as Mark Twain back when he was alive and active.

> In reporting out a story, it is the journalist's responsibility to obtain factual and verifiable information.

Yes, like the fact that a website called "Slate Star Codex" exists and particular posts in it say what the article says they say.

There is no reason why a story about the blog needs to include the real name of the author, when that real name isn't even revealed anywhere on the blog. The story is about the blog.

Does this mean they don’t care if there is a reasonable risk of retribution as long as they get the person on record?

Reporters will try to get the person on record, but in the end, it's up to the source.

If he or she agrees to go on record, they should understand the potential risks.

It would behoove the reporter to lay out the options. Tricking someone to say something without knowing whether he or she is on the record is a big no-no.

That's what gets me in this situation.

Publishing the article with his full name if he's OK with that is an acceptable outcome.

Binning the article entirely if he's not OK with publishing his full name is also an acceptable outcome (though honestly it's a waste of time on all parties and it would have been better to make this constraint clear up front).

But publishing the article anyway and releasing his full name against his will, when he's the primary source for the story? That seems like a no-no. Interestingly, this hasn't happened yet, and seems like it may never at this rate.

The "constraint" against revealing Scott's real name has always been clear up-front to people who were familiar with his work, even on-line. If it wasn't clear enough to this NYT reporter, that's their problem.

Ok, but is it reasonable for people to understand the potential risks?

I don’t see any reporting on the dangers of talking to reporters. Where is the NYT piece on what happens to people after they have been linked to something in the news?

I think that given Scott Alexander’s experience, ‘don’t talk to reporters, ever’, is as sound advice as ‘don’t talk to the police without an attorney’.

> I don’t see any reporting on the dangers of talking to reporters.

There are plenty of resources on how to handle talking with a reporter.

One thing I would suggest learning the difference between going on- and off-the-record and speaking on background.

> Where is the NYT piece on what happens to people after they have been linked to something in the news?

Here's a free one: Harvey Weinstein's victims. Despite them coming out about his abusive behaviors, his attorneys and henchman are going after them.

Where are these ‘plenty of resources’?

The Weinstein case seems to tell us nothing about the general risk of talking to reporters even though it is a data point.

It sounds like you are in full agreement with me otherwise though.

“Talking to reporters is very dangerous. Never do so without extensive study of the available resources.”

Ehhh, I don't think this accurately represents the situation with "on the record" or "off the record":

1. When a journalist identifies themself as a journalist, all conversations thereafter are assumed to be on the record unless specified otherwise.

2. Statements can't be made off the record after the fact--you have to say something is off the record before you say it for it to be considered off the record.

3. This is only journalist tradition, not law. Even if you say something is off the record, there's no real incentive for a journalist not to just publish it anyway, except their integrity. Journalists can and do break this rule, especially when they disagree with the person whose words they are reporting.

> Ehhh, I don't think this accurately represents the situation with "on the record" or "off the record"

I am not tying SSC's situation with the general theme of on- and off-the-record.

I will say your explanation of the difference is spot on.

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