Comment by aeturnum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aeturnum | Hacker News Reader

There's a thing with The Atlantic and some other high-prestige publications (The New York Times comes to mind) where, among really high quality journalism, they regularly publish articles that are trying to make a case for an understanding that isn't supported by basically any of their sources. The Times' work on trans issues comes to mind for this as well - they interview a bunch of people on both sides and end up making a case for an understanding that none of their sources agree with and basically everyone is mad about. It feels like a combination of the personal opinions of the journalists involved, but justified and presented in a way to fit as well as possible with expert interviews. This is super normal and human, but isn't what I would call journalism.

It's too bad because I think these institutions do a lot of high quality work, but it seems to me that they pretty regularly do this kind of thing. Perhaps this is a universal flaw of all publications, but there have been efforts to criticize this in specific instances[1] which seem to have little impact and generate little reflection and it's a shame.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/02/15/1157181127/nyt-letter-trans

I think it's a case where modern journalists (and in many other parts of society) find a hypothesis they think will do well and hunt for leads/studies/data that fit the hypothesis. It's easier to do because you only need to do as much research as to prove the outcome demands, and does better with the readers because they're interested in the result less with how they got there. It's like going out as a hunter knowing your only goal is to hunt a buck. You know what you're hunting, so you can prep accordingly with the deer call horns and other paraphernalia.

Good journalism - something I believe was done more by the journalists of the past - go out to interesting places and talk to interesting people to gather whatever they can, and find a good story within that. In terms of the hunter analogy, it's more like laying a whole bunch of traps, be it fish, bird, beaver or bear, and seeing what you end up with at the end of the day. You might not always get what your readers want, but it's also more fulfilling and often important when you land a prize catch.

I suspect a lot of it is driven by the decline of the financial health of journalism as well. I think this sort of story is often one that fits the prejudices of a lot of readers (certainly the author of this article is arguing their perspective was omitted because it did not fit expectations) and is likely to be popular. That lines up with a lot of research about how peoples like having their existing beliefs confirmed and are resistant to being challenged.

I imagine that, if you are a journalist who won't do this kind of piece on occasion, your numbers suffer and you either need to be very good at your job, or you suffer professionally and are more likely to leave. So a lot of the journalists who stay are ones who often can do good work, but also do some hack work sometimes on some topics.

I think a reason this seemed less common in the past (or maybe just less obvious) was we had a very different media climate with less immediate feedback. Internal opinions on the quality of work probably mattered more - and you had less opportunity to see how many people were clicking on your colleague's story an hour after being published.

I'd argue that my biggest criticism of journalism as it is practiced is that many practitioners aren't even trying to be scientific. The pressure of deadline for regular publication creates huge incentive to publish not discovered truth, but a pre-ordained thesis that then lends itself to cherry-picked fact-hunting to bolster that thesis (and discarding of counter-evidence that would cast doubt upon the thesis).

I've been close enough on-the-ground to multiple reported stories to bear witness to this happening: quotes that I was present when they were given taken madly out of context because they one-fifth supported the reporter's idea and four-fifths refuted it. It's not a great way to find truth (not bad for concocting digestible stories though).

Regarding the article you linked, NPR is very biased in favor towards the current progressive stance on trans, and they present that perspective as if it's true and correct, without substantial coverage of opposing views.

For example, here's an interview transcript on the topic of whether male athletes with a trans identity have an unfair advantage over female athletes in sport: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/09/1168858094/arguments-that-tra.... This was from last year. There is a considerable body of sports science research that demonstrates male physical advantage across a range of sports, and how even with long-term testosterone suppression this isn't mitigated. None of this is even mentioned. In fact the interviewee just brushes over all of this, claiming there is no good evidence, without being challenged on this.

That sort of bias is unfortunately quite typical of NPR, not just on trans but many topics.

I linked a progressive source report on a progressive critique of the Times. I didn't even characterize the content of the article or letter, other than the latter is critical of the Times, which I believe is true. If you have a conservative report on the same letter - or conservative critique of the NYT reporting on trans issues, feel free to add it!

That said, otherwise your comment feels like the sort of thing I was complaining about - albeit not published by an elite journalistic organization. You took an opportunity to jump from one subject (issue-specific flaws in reporting) to another one (that NPR has bias, and you think they report poorly on trans issues among others). I have my own thoughts on how media orgs report on trans people (I imagine our views differ) but that wasn't really what I was talking about. I don't even really know how this post relates to what I was talking about - maybe you like the reporting I am critiquing? Tho if you don't like NPR's reporting on trans issues you probably also have critiques of the NYT.

15 day old account. It's always relatively fresh accounts bringing up "the trans issue".

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