On HN, what matters is not the site but the article. If it's a bad article that shouldn't be on HN, flag it. Many users did in this case. (There's a small karma threshold of 30 before an account is able to flag.) Please don't post off topic complaints like this, which add nothing of value.

Like many other sites, the NYT publishes both articles that make good HN submissions and articles that make bad HN submissions. We want the good ones.

I think it's worth addressing this head-on even though you're getting downvoted presumably for being off-topic.

In terms of US-based journalism, the industry has been gutted by ours truly. My observation is that there's hardly any traditional newsmedia content worthy of the HN front page and that the NYT is one of the very last daily papers worth reading along with the WSJ and Washington Post. The NYT has real journalists given the budget to do long form and investigative reporting and cultural commentary. That they would be one of the few general news outlets consistently producing content relevant to SV and tech should be no surprise.

If you'll forgive me for reading between the lines, you dislike that the NYT's particular bias is being over represented on HN. But all media has always been biased and the only treatment is a diversity of sources. Unfortunately there's no longer much diversity when it comes to high-quality reporting, so even if HN's audience would want to upvote a different viewpoint, the papers that used to publish those viewpoints have long since turned to clickbait.

What are unpaid journalists? Do they have editors and publishers to answer to? Do they have journalistic standards to uphold? Do they answer to anything other than advertising revenue? I don't understand what you're actually contrasting professional journalism with.

They're not constrasting paid journalists with unpaid journalists, they're pointing out that NYT's journalists being paid doesn't necessarily make them "real".

Real vs. fake? Paid vs. unpaid? NYT vs. ??? I feel like I need a semiotics text to figure out what's actually being implied here.

It doesn't seem that complicated to me... Someone described the NYT's journalists as "real" journalists and return0 took issue with that, saying that they're (just) "paid" journalists. The suggestion is that whether what they do is "real journalism" or not (and whether, in return0's words, they should be considered "arbiters of truth") is determined by factors beyond simply having a budget.[1]

Ie. Being paid for it is an insufficient condition for "real journalism", though it may or may not be a necessary one.

[1]. And I suppose it is implied that the NYT doesn't (always?) meet those factors.

This reads like an explanation to a sample question on a standardized test. This isn't a formal debate and no one gets points for logically correct but empty observations.

I still don't know what the specific alternative to "paid journalists" is. I don't need a random HN commenter to tell me that there are humans in newsrooms and sometimes they display bias, make mistakes, or even lie on purpose. But injecting comments like the original don't actually add anything to the conversation other than a generalized paranoia. If return0 has specific complaints, they should articulate them.

i don't think the opposite of 'real' is 'unpaid'

It seems like you’re the one who introduced “paid” vs “unpaid”. GP only claimed “real”; you introduced the strawman to which you now object.

i did not mention unpaid

You described them as "paid". The opposite of _that_ would be unpaid.

But the larger issue is that I don't really know what you're comparing professional journalism to. Is there actual volunteer journalism that attempts to enforce editorial standards and faces consequences when they fail?

I feel the point you're making. The title is clearly linkbait, almost none of the comments I've read here are positive or feel the article is making a clear and well-evidenced point.

Yet it's on front-page as though it's relevant, when it appears the majority are balking at the article.

I think it's a question worth asking.

Comments seldom represent the majority in any venue, and for that matter "votes" don't necessarily either. However it's a general observational piece about a philosophy some prescribe to. Seems pretty interesting and worthy of conversation to me.

Articles are meant to promote discussion, not affirmations of belief.

Meh, the bar has to be higher than that. If you call a hoard of people speaking up to reject the article's validity successful because it "promotes discussion" then I don't know what to tell you.