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Comment by abirch | Hacker News Reader

When has the NYTimes made shit up?

I also would appreciate an answer to this. It's one thing to say anonymous sources like to offer quotes when they can push a preferred narrative. It's another to say they straight up make things up, and this lazy attitude of reflexively accusing NYT of fabrication like it's the apex of wisdom seems to come from a place of not understanding their processes or history.

There's bias in the sense of selecting stories and editorial judgment, and narrative emphasis. But people have gotten way too comfortable just reflexively claiming stories are fabrications, which I think in truth is extremely rare.

to be fair, most of the people who could give you an answer have probably been banned/shadowbanned from this website (this website has a very blatant zionist influence, as does NYT)

There was one particular really important story a few years ago that massively affected global geopolitics, making a lot of people very angry, and they later admitted they just made it the fuck up.

I actually accept that as a legitimate example, and I do think that has important implications for the topic in question if we're thinking about something coming on its second anniversary in a few weeks. I don't think it's characteristic of NYT's reporting in other areas.

I know this is where you point to Murry Gellman amnesia but despite its fancy name I don't think I agree with its thesis, and in fact find it to be an incredibly damaging ethos in the misinformation environment we currently inhabit.

Judith Miller reported total fabrications and helped lead the entire country into a disastrous invasion of Iraq.

For some reason I feel like reporting fabricated evidence is magnitudes different than fabricating evidence (making shit up.) From what I've briefly read is that Judith Miller reported on evidence that Ahmad Chalabi provided her: https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/

I'm not saying that the NYTimes doesn't have an agenda (it has one) nor do I believe that they are infallible. I'm just wondering when they've manufactured information like the days of yellow journalism or the likes of Stephen Glass or Janet Cooke

Correct. I got lost in the threads, and lost context here.

I have never heard of the NYT deliberately inventing falsehoods. They do have a history of credulously repeating falsehoods as truth to serve an editorial goal. I’ll grant that distinction.

Note that does nothing to defend the story in question.

I believe the story in question is overly hyped. I don't think anyone was planning on destroying the phone system. It seems like the secret service found a text spam ring and is trying to make it more nefarious.

Judith Miller re: Saddam’s WMDs

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