Hacker News Reader

Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

> "Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside of normal business hours."

Just to air a side gripe, I don't know why journalists and/or editors think statements like this are helpful in the least. Did you ask them 1 hour before your deadline? Was it a week ago?

Are we to gain some better understanding or infer something by your inclusion of this caveat, other than to get a superficial cover-your-ass "we asked them at some vague time we can't be bothered to state, and haven't heard back yet"?

Back to the substantive content, this article can be summarized by the first sentence of it, minus the regurgitated 2/3 of the rest of the story. "We heard someone in some division say their budgets aren't final yet, so we're guessing that more cuts are possible."

View on HN

I read it as a side note to the reader that this information has not been confirmed by the company yet so it could be false. However they did ask them but did not get an answer. Also that it’s not unreasonable that they did not get an answer. Sounds to me like they are trying to be good journalists but at the same time they want to break the story while it’s hot. So you get a story with a disclaimer that doesn’t put the blame on the company.

They are literally reporting made-up "news" based on their own fantasy (and vaguely admitting doing so) and you feel that's "good journalism"?

Then what is "bad journalism"?

I think you’re confusing giving the company a chance to respond with made-up news. The time a news outlet gives for a response is usually proportional to the severity of what they’re announcing.

Giving a company a chance to respond to some hiring numbers when they likely have multiple anonymous sources who have been credible before is a different bar than asking for comment on something that alleges fraud or illegal activity.

If a company doesn't respond to the made up fantasy, that doesn't suddenly make the made up fantasy any more real or proven.

> The time a news outlet gives for a response is usually proportional to the severity of what they’re announcing.

This is an assumption with 0 substantiation. Actually in 2023, I would say the average main stream media outlet does NOT get the benefit of the doubt here.

> likely have multiple anonymous sources who have been credible before

This is an assumption with 0 substantiation. Again.

Why does this media outlet deserve the benefit of the doubt? I just don't get it.

It’s common journalistic practice. That’s one of the benefits of reporting in mainstream media, they have pretty high standards for what gets published.

That doesn’t mean they’re always right or there aren’t bad journalists, but if you spend time listening to most journalists explain their reporting they often explain exactly how they verify their stories, what they went through to get sources, and what they were and weren’t able to report.

Journalism is one of the few ways we have in a democracy to hold power to account. What I don’t get is what a lack of faith in this institution does for us except give those in power even more ways to be unaccountable for what they do.

It’s a basic courtesy that shows some amount of good faith, and helps the reader understand the degree to which all parties have had an opportunity to be heard, and whether or not they chose to seize it. It’s not necessarily suggestive of much, but it’s respectful and useful for context.

>[It] helps the reader understand the degree to which all parties have had an opportunity to be heard, and whether or not they chose to seize it.

I agree that this would be the case, but only if they were a bit more explicit about the amount of time they gave to the company to respond. Which, I believe, is the entire point the grandparent comment is making.

As the article currently stands, it makes it sound like the company was reached out to, but ended up not responding, which might be indicative of something on their end. Initially, I assumed the typical cowardly corporate "better just ignore and not reply due to the advice from legal" approach and an implied silent admittance of the anonymous info in the article being truthful.

And then I re-read the article after seeing the grandparent comment, and realized that the article author admitted that they only attempted reaching out to the company outside of business hours, likely on a saturday (given that the article sources another article that broke those "news" earlier the same day). That turned my initial impression a full 180, with the only factual takeaway from that article being that Meta employees responsible making official public statements on behalf of the company observe weekends off.

I've seen dozen of examples of journalists sending these with ridiculous timelines (eg sending 10PM Friday night for answer by Saturday), seemingly because they do not care for or do not want your input on the story, but know asking is considered a requirement. If anything, it signals the opposite to me.

> Just to air a side gripe, I don't know why journalists and/or editors think statements like this are helpful in the least. Did you ask them 1 hour before your deadline? Was it a week ago?

I think this is an absolutely fair question. However, the Reuters story came out on Sat and simply cites another publication, which came out the same day. Reuters even said "request for comment outside of normal business hours". I'd say it's pretty clear that all of the following happened within the space of one Saturday: Reuters saw the FT story, pinged Facebook, didn't get an answer, published their own story. Personally, as a reader, I don't feel I'd learn much by having access to a more granular timeline.

Reasonable point, but what makes them have to publish a story on a Saturday, uncorroborated, rather than wait until Monday and get some comment from FB?

Goes to another overall point that, why do they need to get a barest-of-bones story out like this? Is their role simply to convey tidbits of gossip, or actually be act like journalists and investigate what’s true?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com