It's a news story about a health patient, yet Naomi seems to expect NPR to act as Martha's personal insurer and care advocate. Would it have been better if NPR didn't publish it at all? Then Naomi would never have been given the chance to virtue signal for exposure. Lose-lose.
In this case plenty of other news outlets have covered her in their articles about Martha: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iron-lung-maker-community
As far as "tech/white/male", you really only have to read the comments people post in any thread about her on Reddit to figure that one out. I can't even imagine what her inbox must look like.
> She has only a handful of collars left. "I really am desperate," she says. "That's the most scary thing in my life right now — is not finding anybody that can make those collars."
Naomi does a lot of interesting work and is snubbed quite a lot. She made it quite public that this was happening and yet NPR still snubbed her.
> bringing a Twitter personality into a story that's not really about her?
Wu was already involved in this. Per her comments she'd already sent packages of collars to be tested and altered / fitted.
Hell, mentioning that there was a volunteer / grassroots effort to produce new collars would have been more honest than the article going "collars where?"
It's NPR. There's no excuse for poor sensationalist journalism even from them.
From the point of view of M.L., she is maybe one of several that promised to help but could do it (not a fault of Naomi Wu of course, but of those that first contacted her for help and then left things unfinished), so it doesn't surprise me that she was not mentioned.
Is NPR obligated to mention all failed attempts to acquire new collars? It seems unlikely they excluded this information because of Naomi's gender or race.
It's great that Naomi donated successfully before and has tried to again, but as you noted she's received plenty of positive media from her donations already.
[1] - "I just could not get anyone to visit her and do final fitting and troubleshooting on the collars I had manufactured for her." - https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/145289590785527398...
Dale Dougherty later posted an open letter in apology.
It's amazing to me how people will bend their principles because they admire someone.
No. She expects a reputable news outlet to fact check their own story, especially since they covered most of the same information the Wired article did 4 years ago - which, naturally, mentioned Wu.
There could be all sorts of reasons NPR didn't mention Naomi. How did Martha get the collars before Naomi's donation? How many years of collar donations/purchases is NPR obligated to mention in their article? Is there anyone else outraged they didn't get mentioned for providing collars years ago?
No I think Wu just expects [0] NPR not to ignore relevant facts to construct a misleading narrative.
> Then Naomi would never have been given the chance to virtue signal for exposure.
Naomi Wu is hardly lacking in exposure opportunities or the ability to exploit them, so even if the basic false dichotomy you propose wasn't false, it wouldn't really be lose-lose for NPR and Wu. (NPR and Martha maybe, since the exposure, even starting in the misleading form NPR presented it, does probably make it more likely that her issue gets resolved, but that's where the false dilemma comes into play, since the story didn't actually have to be misleading.)
[0] in the normative, but emphatically not the predictive, sense of the word.
So yeah, she has a humongous chip on her shoulder, and maybe she gets carried away with that anger, but the chip on her shoulder comes from some legitimate grievances.
Regardless, she has a lot of respect in the maker space because she's one of the few people who says "oh yeah, we can jump in and come up with help for this medical/prosthetic problem" and doesn't half-ass it. She's very specific about that - this is one of those cases where Minimum Viable Product is unacceptable, these items need to stand up to real life and 24/7 contact with human skin.
Even more, Martha herself commented on her video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VKZTmTP7oY&lc=UgyYG8WsY8fN4...
I think it's fair to discuss NPR as propaganda here.
> And of course- when someone does something, but they aren't the right kind of someone let's pretend her name did not come up at the top of the search when you fact-checked this story right @NPRHealth ? Just say you want a straight white American tech bro to do it.
NPR is rife with bias, if you know how to look for it. I recommend reading Propaganda by Ed Bernays & then thinking about why the people who make huge donations to NPR make those donations (IMO, it's because NPR largely exists to reinforce the existing social structure).
ETA (since I'm rate-limited...):
> Do tell us more about NPR's liberal bias.
Sure. By telling these kind of fables about how global capitalism is actually good for everybody, they're trying to prevent growing class consciousness that would eventually force fundamental, revolutionary change to how we allocate resources.
Oh wait, you thought I was to the right of NPR? Sorry, no, that probability distribution is barely distinguishable from Nazism at this point. Also no one to the right of NPR would ever use the term "third-way" in criticism of it.
YES. I love NPR as a news source, because of the oddball stories they cover. But they are solidly, solidly in the 'bootlicker' camp when it comes to how great and exceptional international businesses are at solving humanities problems.
At which point you're going to have a serious confirmation bias problem. How would I know that I know how to look for it? Easy: I found some.
"If only you'd open your eyes and look for the truth!" is kinda how that comes across to me.
Can you expound on this? I have come to a similar observation, but would be interested in hearing what specifically they’re reinforcing.
And yeah, it sounds like NPR should have picked up on the maker community here. Articles which precede this one by years bring up Naomi Wu. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iron-lung-maker-community
Given this, I think it's fair for Ms. Wu to have a hot take on this.
Highly recommend reading Propaganda by Ed Bernays. I saw it recommended on HN years ago, so I bought and read it -- it really helped make me a smarter consumer of news.