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Comment by vundercind | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure the wider harm of the NYT halting operations for an entire week—which isn't remotely what's happening—would be effectively zero, even during the week of a presidential election. What's the problem?

Teachers and health care workers try to be more careful because a bunch of vulnerable people (children, patients) with little to no say in anything about how their respective institutions run are heavily dependent on them. A single newspaper, even the NYT, isn't comparable.

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Exactly, if anything this strike is timed to do the least damage to the general public relative to the amount of impact it has on the business. The election has already been decided, we're just waiting to tally the votes. Most people have already decided if they're going to vote and if so who for.

If they had striked last week or the week before they'd have been accused of election interference. Striking this week hurts the Times because they run the risk of losing traffic from people trying to see results, but it doesn't impact the results at all. It's the best possible time to strike this year.

Hard disagree. The most important part of the election, from a news perspective, will be during/after the count, especially if it looks like Harris will win, or it's exceedingly close. Maybe this wouldn't be the case pre-Trump, when elections were decided relatively quickly, and you could assume a peaceful transfer of power.

What part are you disagreeing with?

The part he clearly didn’t understand

>when elections were decided relatively quickly,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

I wonder how people who seem to care so much about politics don't spend any time reading about politics beyond rage bait headlines.

The NYT burning to the ground doesn't seem like a bad outcome if it will force people to use wikipedia which still has hyperlinks.

Because most people who “care” about politics like this are radicalized due to their bubble. Add in a fair mix of a lack of civics classes and inexperience with politics and you get very loud people with no idea what’s going on.

Who is harmed and how? Students only have one school and limited options for the SATs. The results draw the most attention, but there are countless reputable sources people can turn to, and little lost by learning the results a bit later.

I would argue it's a great benefit rather than a problem, too.

NYT not publishing sensationalist bullshit? While it's just one outlet out of countless many, the world will be that much more peaceful for but a short while.

I didn't think my original comment needed it, but yes, I actually agree the NYT not publishing might be a net improvement in the world, not just not-harmful.

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