Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante? | Hacker News Reader

Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?

publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com

30 pointsceejayoz23 comments

Here's an example:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romneys-claim-that-ob...

>Romney suggests, Obama does not believe in American strength and greatness.

> Asked by a British reporter whether he thought the United States was uniquely qualified to lead the world, Obama answered: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” As Romney put it in his book, this “is another way of saying he doesn’t believe it all.”

> But Obama was just getting warmed up. His next sentence was: “I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world.” He continued: “If you think of our current situation, the United States remains the largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.”

So, I think here that Mitt Romney is clearly being disingenuous if he's claiming, based on this, that Obama doesn't believe in American exceptionalism. It's dishonest. Nevertheless, if I squint at the first paragraph, I really can interpret Obama as at least downplaying American exceptionalism. And, if you already suspected that Obama were a liar, then you could try to claim that the first paragraph was revealing while the second paragraph was fluff.

So I would have no problem with the NYTimes adding information that would clarify or discredit a 3rd party's statement, like the full text of the Obama quote referenced by Romney. But it seems extreme for them to follow up with something like "Mitt Romeny is lying here".

The funny thing is, Obama is just being honest, while Romney is lying.

This article is asking whether the NY Times should be a newspaper.

While pithy, your statement isn't entirely true. They're asking what kind of newspaper they should be. Regardless of how objective they are in their corrections, there will be those who see such a move as legitimizing editorialist in news articles. At the end of the day, we are trusting the author and editor to be the final arbiters of truth. There are those who would feel, perhaps rightly, that this oversteps their role as journalists.

It's just a question of where you draw the line, isn't it?

The Times doesn't print holocaust deniers' statements without a note that such a claim is bullshit, does it? Or, if it does (in which case it would presumably just make sure to have a "mainstream" 3rd party point of view accompany it), how "big" can a lie be in the Times before they'd state the clear objective [yeah, yeah...] truth in their own voice? A claim that George W. Bush is still the President? That the sky isn't blue?

Which is not to say that "Obama apologizes for the US" is on the same plane as far as how easy it is for the overwhelming majority to find agreeability on its, err, "truthiness". Therein lies the rub, I suppose.

> perhaps rightly

I agree with everything you said except for that. The press, in its true spirit, exists to serve others. If people are better informed, they will make better decisions. At its best, the press could act in a teaching and advising role to the public. I know that's very idealistic.

Sometimes I have a hard time seeing who the news really helps these days. We know we can definitely get an echo of our own opinion, but very rarely do people present us with a piece of information and an opportunity to think for ourselves. It's always being pre-packaged these days.

So news papers with a wide reach have an obligation to help make people more informed.

> As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

It's not just a lie, it's a provably false statement. In fact, it might not even be an intentional lie - if Romney truly believed that he heard Obama apologizing for America, he wouldn't be lying, but he would be making a false statement.

If a newspaper is printing lies and provably false statements, isn't that just fiction?

Only if the newspaper is asserting those lies or statements. There is nothing wrong with a newspaper reporting someone as saying X, even if X is untrue, imo.

Sure, but at that point they're effectively a library of press releases, and offer no added value, other than aggregating all the press releases in one place, I guess.

Perhaps, but if their statements are demonstrably false then the Newspaper has, as a basic principle of journalistic integrity, an obligation to point that what was quoted is factual untrue.

Being a mouthpiece for self-serving falsehoods is exactly why so many people have little to no respect for Newspapers anymore.

The line about Krugman made me laugh.

Just a year ago when I was a finance and econ student there was a big controversy because Krugman would publish an article on the NYT and within minutes there would be several comments refuting all his points. Many even provided PHD-like citations that clearly showed Krugman lied. That was one of the first times the NYT limited comments to less than 100 words, that way arguments could not be made.

You are a liar.

I just checked both his op-ed and blog posts and there are several comments of several 100 words.

Can you provide any citation for this?

I am not a huge fan of the Economist, but I do think they manage the synthesis of reporting and critical analysis effectively by bluntly making value statements. For example, take an exerpt from an article on Romney:

"He says he created a net 100,000 jobs during his time at Bain. That figure is impossible to prove, but he could do more to argue that the benefits outweigh the costs."

I wouldn't have a problem with that sentence appearing in the Times.

In the 1890s, in a dry, neutral, "objective" tone the NY Times reported on southern lynchings by including the "crimes" the victims supposedly committed. A mere listing of facts is not journalism. Creating a context by researching and checking on the data is, as bitops implied below.

"When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory." --Kelvin

Interesting they closed comments on an article specifically asking for feedback.

The New York Times has always struck me as rather pretentious and self-important. They seem to report about themselves as much as the news.

> Arthur S. Brisbane is the readers' representative. He responds to complaints and comments from the public and monitors the paper's journalistic practices.

This isn't a regular news article, it's a special editorial section. This seems like a very appropriate subject.

Yes. But they do a lot of these editorials, which seem to get linked frequently. I guess that's what I end up seeing. I see more links to the NYTimes talking about itself then I see links to news on the NYTimes.

I think that reflects more on people who do the linking rather than on NYT itself.

It's an interesting question, and in my little world the answer is full of caveats. Opinion and a nose for lies is wonderful when the journalist sets themselves after factual accuracy and digging up the truth. It is tiresome and unpalatable when a journalist begins interjecting relatively unsubstantiated personal opinion where it doesn't belong.

The news media has deteriorated in the last few decades due to several different, and in some cases surprising, forces.

First, we are all aware of the trend towards infotainment and tabloidism that has occurred over time. "Human interest" stories, celebrity gossip, etc. are generally far cheaper than investigative journalism and when your revenue comes from ads (effectively selling eyeball quantities) you end up in a situation where quality takes a back seat to popularity. Which means that the ability to produce content that is popular and cheap will lead to higher profit margins than other sorts of content.

Second, historically worldwide communication to large populations was difficult, so there were only a few broadcast media outlets: newspapers, radio, and television. Naturally these outlets took it upon themselves to serve as the gatekeepers of information for a community. They not only did original reporting on local issues they also re-broadcast additional material such as national news, weather reports, syndicated comic strips. And they provided services such as classified ads which leveraged their role as the main information conduit for communities. However, they came to see these secondary activities as part and parcel of their identity, as a very fundamental aspect of what it means to be a "newspaper" or a local television news channel. More so, because such content is easier and cheaper to reproduce it had a much higher profit margin (just as above) than producing original content, leading to the withering of original reporting. Even as technology has erased the need for news organizations to serve as information conduits many of them have had a hard time letting go of that identity.

Third, over the last few decades there has been a trend towards the ideal model of "reporting" being a very abstract idea of absolutely "unbiased" and "objective" reporting of pure facts. On the surface this seems like a perfectly fine idea, but in reality it's devastating to the ability to actually report the news. Unmoored of any viewpoint, perspective, or values the "news" then becomes something akin to abstract art.

The unfortunate end result of all of these factors is that modern news media organizations tend to concentrate more on access and reproduction than investigation and fact checking. More so, news organizations find themselves in a horse race with other competitors and begin to fear for losing access, so they keep their reporting in check and don't rock the boat.

Ultimately this leads to a news media which fails at its central duty: to inform the public. Instead it becomes a mere regurgitative conduit which serves more to prop up existing establishments than to be the sort of radical, actively truth-seeking, institution-challenging organizations we idealize them to be.

The news has been in a race to be first for decades. Now, twitter and blogs will win that race, every time.

If news media isn't going to revert to solid journalism, then they'll simply die off and be replaced by technology and crowds. The current depth of reporting is not really more significant than listening to any random commenter or person stringing together unverified 'facts'.

Incidentally, I've been trying for two months to get a local news reporter to admit that she blatantly misreported something. The level of integrity shown so far is on par with a sixth grader whose dog supposedly ate her homework.

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