Don't get me wrong, I don't completely agree with the whole 'liberal MSM' disillusionment, but does this mess point to deeper problems specific to the newspaper? I have no idea, and would appreciate it if somebody clarified this for me.
Don't get me wrong, I don't completely agree with the whole 'liberal MSM' disillusionment, but does this mess point to deeper problems specific to the newspaper? I have no idea, and would appreciate it if somebody clarified this for me.
>That week, a Google employee named James Damore wrote a memo arguing that the low number of women in technical positions at the company was a result of biological differences, not anything else — a memo he was later fired over. One Slate Star Codex reader on Reddit noted the similarities to the writing on the blog.
There's so much wrong with these two sentences. The first is just flat out false, and that they didn't link to the original material in the piece - but instead to another NYT article, which links to a Vice article which finally has the primary source - is really telling. The second sentence is just ... what? Some redditor noted some similarities? This is breathtakingly embarrassing journalism. Maybe we can attribute it to just lazy prose. Okay, then where is the editor? It's so poorly written that, you're right, calling it a "hit piece" is giving it too much credit.
Some journalists seem to to farm stories off social media.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/inside-the-new-york-...
> wish to be anonymous invalidate the whole newspaper's
> integrity?
There is some content I consumed years ago and thought was quite reliable, until recently, something that was published just rubbed me the wrong way. I did some digging and found that I was right, that there was some issue. I then went back and applied this same skepticism to some of the previous publications - and found that some of them also had problems, and that I had overlooked them. At the time, they seemed correct, but I had simply overlooked some issues based on their perceived credibility.
My point is - now you have seen that it is at least possible for NYT to publish biased and outright incorrect content, they have shown their capability to do so, therefore you must consider that other publications may also be incorrect. I would suggest that at least in the immediate future, you perform your own cross-referencing. You need to determine if this was just a slip up, or one obvious misstep in a long line of non-obvious missteps.
Generally, I encourage people to read both a moderate left-wing and right-wing source. Where they conflict is usually where you have to do your own digging. For example, was that Tweet taken out of context? Did that image/video really show that? Is this person really as they claim? I feel like a lot of modern journalism is really hidden in the framing of the evidence.
It's really sad. This paper had such honor. Now it's a horror show.
https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
Regarding reputation: All media outlets big and small have the mutually beneficial habit of copying each others' work with essentially reposted articles. The uniformity of narrative on various events and topics that come up - the circular referencing called the "media cycle" - bolsters the appearance that the original outlet is generally right on things.
Retractions are often printed by the New York Times, and to their credit they are very rigorous in doing so. But it is not on the front page, and only a small fraction of those who read the original pieces or their headlines return to see the retraction. When it comes to online work, silent edits are increasingly common. Luckily there is a tracker to see where those are happening and whether NYT does it more than other outlets:
Given that the NYT wasn’t unmasking some villain, I think they are the ones in the wrong. If you can’t write a good article without using a person’s real name, then it’s probably not a good article with the real name either. Should we start writing articles about all the movie stars that use different names?
It's not like the piece went and delved in to his personal life unrelated to his writings. They just said he is writing that blog. This is well within ethical journalism standards. The whole drama around it is a result of Scott rallying his followers to feel as if he has been done some wrong.
You lose your privacy the moment you do things in public.
We should definitely have the right to keep certain things private but not the thing we make public. Expecting otherwise is a very childish expectation. (Childish as in: the world revolves around you, and you get to decide the rules)
In Japan, the law might have protected Scott.
I think the japanese law makes a bit of sense. The NYT article was about the pseudonym, "Scott Alexander", not about the real person. Scott has consistently represented the blog as being authored by that pseudonym. The NYT piece was only about the blog and that pseudonym, not about him as a person, so it seems like it's pretty meaningless to bring up his real name in the first place.
I'm not sure how this addresses the first paragraph of the parent comment. Their point was that he didn't do much of this, and it wasn't the problem Scott raised which was (paraphrasing the comment) about patients developing a personal relationship with him through his ideas expressed on the blog.
He himself says that his blog is only psuedo anonymous and it's easy to find out who he is.
So it's a risk he knowingly took, the fact that his name is known is on him, not NYT.
The world does not revolve around you or I, but in general the people in it operate according to some kind of goal or motivation, and I am baffled by what the author of the NYT article felt he was achieving. He started by writing a story about a man who was consistently right about certain aspects of covid before the authorities, somehow started a fight with his subject, and ended up publishing a poorly written hatchet job with zero info about covid, coincidentally earning Scott quarter of a million dollars. What the hell did he want out of all this? What did he gain, what did he give his readers, what journalistic values did he uphold?
> “We take seriously our obligations to protect sources,” Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said. “Many important stories in sensitive areas like politics, national security and business could never be reported if our journalists violated that trust.” [1]
And to be clear, though she said "source", that comment was about the author of an anonymous op-ed published in the NYT. Why does anonymity for authors cease to be important if people bypass the NYT and communicate with the public directly?
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/anonymous-mil...
Edit to clarify once again: This example is the NYT protecting the author of an anonymous op-ed. If sharing an opinion makes someone a source, isn't everyone a source? Or does it only count, and become worthy of protection, if published in the NYT, not on one's own blog?
Source anonimity is important because otherwise sources in delicate situations will never talk to the press. This has nothing to do with the issue here and I don't understand why would you see it otherwise.
These cases are not related in the slightest.
It also acknowledges that "many important stories in sensitive areas like politics, national security and business could never be" discussed without anonymity. Whether that discussion happens on the NYT or not is, IMO, irrelevant. I realize blogs are a threat to their business model, but that doesn't excuse targeting their authors.