Comment by jonnathanson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonnathanson | Hacker News Reader

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"If that's the case, that's a novel way of doing journalism: publish crap first, then sell more paper by doing a critique of your crap."

I wouldn't assume it was an intentional strategy. Papers and magazines have never been shy about critiquing themselves. (At least, the better ones haven't.) Back in the day, it wasn't uncommon to see an editor at the New York Times take a staff reporter or columnist to task in a sidebar, or even in a followup story. And the role of ombudsman used to mean something. (Whereas today, it's a very underappreciated and little-understood role.)

Second, we shouldn't necessarily presume that writers at the same paper are coordinating with each other. Say what you will about that as a business practice. But it's a fact of life at many publications, with distributed staffs, section-specific editors, shrinking numbers of full-timers, and ever-increasing numbers of independent contractors. I wouldn't attribute to malice what can better be explained by uncoordinated action.

[EDIT: This comment got a downvote, and I'm guessing it's because someone assumed I'm defending the Guardian here. Just to be clear, I'm not. When I say that people aren't always coordinating, I'm not offering that as a defense of lack of coordination. I'm offering it as a possible explanation. Clearly, a lack of coordination is a bad thing.]

> . I wouldn't attribute to malice what can better be explained by uncoordinated action.

Don't they do peer reviews before publishing articles to the eyes of millions ?

In theory, this is the function of the editor -- be it a section editor, a managing editor, or someone else who bears the title "editor." In practice, editors have been very hard hit by the journalism crunch. There are still plenty of fantastic editors out there; they're just not getting hired, kept on, or appropriately compensated for their contribution anymore. Editors' heads are often the first on the guillotine when the cost-cutting rounds begin. The editors who survive the purge are often wildly overstretched. Others are extremely green--college kids, hired for a third of what an experienced editor gets paid, under the misguided assumption that anyone with a journalism degree can successfully fulfill the responsibilities of an editor.

(For what it's worth: I don't know anyone on the Guardian's staff, and am making no specific accusations here.)

>Don't they do peer reviews before publishing articles to the eyes of millions ?

No.

The closest journalism gets to peer review is fact-checking. I know of no newspaper or website that does formal fact-checking; the only times I recall being formally factchecked were when I've written for monthlies like Playboy, Wired magazine, etc. Here's a famous example of where fact-checking would have been useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic_...

At other news organizations there is, in theory, informal fact-checking. I've done that as an editor and reporter, and I've had that done to me by my editors and, more frequently, by the good folks working on copy desks. This is not necessarily a rigorous process, but it can flag more obvious problems, hyperlinks to the wrong web pages, information stated as fact that is no longer accurate, etc.

As <jonnathanson> points out nearby, some of these built-in safeguards have been eroded by the journalism crunch. Others have been removed by the perceived need to increase publishing speed. I know of one news organization that had 3-4 humans involved in reviewing a story circa 2002 before it could be published on the web. By 2010-2012, however, reporters were clicking the "publish" button in the CMS themselves for almost all stories -- and then sending a request to the copy desk for an edit after the story was live.

[Disclosure: I worked as a technology journalist, albeit one with a technical background, before leaving CNET/CBS last year to found http://recent.io/]

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