Inability to keep an immutable record of what's been published disqualifies nyt from its claim of being "the paper of record".
https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891
Spoiler: I don't think "it's an opinion piece" is a colorable argument.
“It became clear that the board and I had a different view on the ability of Reddit to grow this year,” Ms. Pao said in an interview. “Because of that, it made sense to bring someone in that shared the same view.”
Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board, said he personally appreciated Ms. Pao’s efforts during her two years working at the start-up. “Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said.
Also consider what the article left out, like the complaints of IAmA mods about the way Victoria was terminated; the requirement that all employees move to San Francisco; the ban on salary negotiations; the community manager who said he was fired for being too sick to work; the complaints from mods about poor support from the admins.
Some opinion pieces explicitly state an opinion. This one conveys an opinion by cherry-picking facts and quotes.
* The Altman quote that was removed favors Pao's supporters. Removing it makes her plight less sympathetic.
* Contra your argument, the petition not only remains in the final story, but has its own graf.
* Contra your argument, the piece retains the concern about Victoria's firing.
* The relocation of Reddit's employees was a Yishan Wong initiative, as was the salary negotiation policy.
There is virtually no news story that you can't attack for "leaving out facts". You might not like this reported news story, but it is not an opinion piece.
What's your source re the salary negotiation policy? Numerous news stories said it was Pao's decision.
The move to SF was often brought up again in discussions over the past couple weeks. Contra the misogyny argument, there's anger at reddit that pre-dates Pao.
Regarding the Altman quote and Pao's statement that "it made sense to bring someone in that shared the same view", I can see your interpretation, though I disagree.
Regarding Victoria's firing: yes, the NYT mentioned it, but without explaining why it angered the mods so much.
Ms. Pao’s departure from Reddit was prompted after the online message board’s tight-knit community broke into upheaval when news broke that Victoria Taylor, a prominent and well-liked Reddit employee, had been suddenly dismissed from the company this month with no public explanation. In protest, Reddit users shut down hundreds of sections of the message board.
This graf:
* Establishes an objective cause of Pao's ouster --- the firing of Victoria Taylor --- that Pao's opponents widely agree is the reason she left.
* Calls into question the reason for Taylor's firing.
* Reports the subreddit strike, which was done precisely to get this sort of attention.
At no point does the graf downplay the firing or somehow mitigate Pao's involvement in it. Which it easily could have, because Pao didn't fire Taylor, Ohanian did.
I do not think you can win an argument that the Times tried to spin the Victoria Taylor issue out of the article.
That's not exactly what I said, and certainly nothing I meant to imply. Allow me to try again:
The article ignored the complaints expressed by the moderators.
That fact is more material to the article than the specifics of the moderator complaints about Taylor --- for instance, it speaks to the difficult situation Pao was in managing a team that included Reddit's charismatic founder and the chairman of the company, in an operational role. But it also isn't in the article.
Parajournalism seems to be journalism — “the collection and dissemination of current news” — but the appearance is deceptive. It is a bastard form, having it both ways, exploiting the factual authority of journalism and the atmospheric license of fiction. Entertainment rather than information is the aim of its producers, and the hope of its consumers.[0]
Your bullet list summary reveals little but your own bias/agenda and adds little to the conversation. We have the actual diff and can read for ourselves which is sort of the point. The diff link was provided in the source article: http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015...
I hope Margaret Sullivan looks into this. Seems appropriate.
0: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1965/aug/26/parajou...
The past is never dead. It's not even past. -- Faulkner
The NYT is entitled to their opinion, but I think it should be expressed in an editorial, not used to choose what facts to report.
If I have an agenda here, it's to ask for better from professional journalists.
The NY Times, like all newspapers, is feeling some financial pain. However, go back about 40 or 50 years to the salad days, and there was no such thing as "the print edition". Many newspapers, including the Times, published a number of editions during the day. National papers were also published regionally, with somewhat different contents. I don't know what happens nowadays.
In times of old, the NY Times National edition was supplanted by the Late City edition. But this caused some problems, as this FAQ discusses: http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/faqs/news/nyteds.html
To anyone who takes seriously the notion that the Times is the "paper of record", no.
(This is a positive argument, not a normative one.)