WaPo and NYT aren't trash but they have fallen mightly. Which sucks because NYT easily has one of the best web design teams on the internet IMO and I used to look forward to reading it daily for over a decade.
I'm still angry that they chose to go all Buzzfeed and hammer it everywhere politicially on their website.
WSJ has been a fine replacement, but it's not as extensive or big as NYT. I just hope things return to a bit more normal after the US election.
As a Indian, I disagree. The reportage on anything India is the usual mix of patronizing caste-curry-cow (and now 'Hindu terror') BS. The morons in-charge of international news at every one of these outlets (incl. Intercept, Twitter, Google..) think that just because they are white, their imagination of the world is the reality.
Proof: Stories like the one they are hiding can drive a lot of traffic. They are hidden to advance one political party over another. The stories aren't killed because they want traffic.
https://unherd.com/2020/01/what-has-the-new-york-times-got-a...
Any report I see, they are presenting their statements with ground report backed by statistics, usually by Govt. data.
[1] https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-economist-fin...
It's noticeable that nobody ever faults the Republican Party, which actually made the decision to invade Iraq. And also to lie to the world, its citizens, and, yes, those people at the Times that were naive enough to believe them.
Congress and the media deserve some blame for not digging hard enough... but when assigning blame here, surely we ought blame the liars and misleaders more than the lied to and the misled?
Except that the Bush Administration story was on several key points, including the nature of the “winnebagos of mass destruction” a lie, and that the US knew it to be a lie, and that, they were, in fact, associated with a weather balloons used in artillery spotting and had been sold to Iraq by the UK, was reported, in the media, at the time the story was being presented by the Administration.
The media did not fail to dig hard enough. Neither really did Congress. The media reported the truth, Congress and much of the population had the truth in front of them and choose wilfull pretense of ignorance, and the former gave Bush the authority to decide to go to war—sure, there were factual determinations that had to be made first, but the Administration was already known to be lying about the facts to get authority to go to war, so it was predictable they would lie to exercise that authority.
Why would we give congress war powers if not as a specific check against a commander in chief who would otherwise start undesireable wars? It is congress' job to specifically not just go along with what the administration tells them. They have their own investigative powers, and 59 congress members voted against the invasion so clearly it was possible for congress people to question the validity of the administration's argument.
As for the media, accepting the government's narrative without question is the most heinous sin. That is not journalism, that is propaganda. Of course the government is going to massage the truth, just like any other institution. Most people take it as a given that politicians lie. However when the media, which is supposed to have an antagonistic relationship with the government, reaffirms what the government is saying, then it holds substantially more weight. It would be like if a prosecutor claimed the defendant was guilty and the defense attorney agreed.
You don't get any slack for having been lied to when your entire job is to identify lies.
If I tell you that some guy called you fat and you go kick the shit out of him, I'm at way less or even no fault. If I tell you that some guy diddled your kid, sure that's on me.
Plus, regardless of that - Congress had, at the very least, the information available to the public, which includes what the UN was saying, what weapons inspectors were saying etc. So they didn't need to "dig" anywhere.
And later it came out the administration lied extensively about that, including some in-retrospect ridiculous assessments about how long the war would take (what was that quote, doubt it would take 6 months, doubt it would cost much at all).
> No need to invoke tribalism
Oh yes there is, especially because after that complete and utter fiasco of the worst foreign policy decision by the US ever, was there any honest introspection or learning by the administration and/or Republicans in general? Nope, it just was completely ignored.
2008 brought a Democrat president along with an increased Democrat majority in both houses, so if they weren't faulted at the time (and they were) then they were certainly faulted just a few years later.
most people I read seems to fault the Republicans, the Democrats who went along and the Media who reported uncritically in that order.
You also seem to fault the Republicans.
I fault the Republicans, first.
So it's not noticeable to me I guess.
Not one. Russiagate in its many variations was and still is happily peddled by NYT. Coverage of Syria is also straight from warmonger 101 textbook. There is likely more, but I stopped reading them regularly after 2003.
> nobody ever faults the Republican Party, which actually made the decision to invade Iraq
Both parties happily voted to invade. Both bear the blame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War
What the lies manufactured was not a "reality", it was an excuse.
It was the editorial board, or perhaps I should say the organization at large. And it wasn't just Iraq, it's US interventions in lots of places that are supported and/or positively spun. Also - AFAIK, there was no process undertaken to try and avoid this occurring again.
> In light of the stark policy choices facing voters in the 2016 election, it seems incredible that only five out of 150 front-page articles that The New York Times ran over the last, most critical months of the election, attempted to compare the candidate’s policies, while only 10 described the policies of either candidate in any detail.
> In this context, 10 is an interesting figure because it is also the number of front-page stories the Times ran on the Hillary Clinton email scandal in just six days, from October 29 (the day after FBI Director James Comey announced his decision to reopen his investigation of possible wrongdoing by Clinton) through November 3, just five days before the election. When compared with the Times’s overall coverage of the campaign, the intensity of focus on this one issue is extraordinary. To reiterate, in just six days, The New York Times ran as many cover stories about Hillary Clinton’s emails as they did about all policy issues combined in the 69 days leading up to the election (and that does not include the three additional articles on October 18, and November 6 and 7, or the two articles on the emails taken from John Podesta). This intense focus on the email scandal cannot be written off as inconsequential: The Comey incident and its subsequent impact on Clinton’s approval rating among undecided voters could very well have tipped the election.
——
But here’s the real kicker. It’s not that the NYT made a mistake about prioritising the wrong coverage and convincing undecided voters to break for Trump or stay home. People make mistakes and we should forgive them.
The real issue is that since then the NYT has convinced people that it was the Russians and Facebook and Cambridge Analytica that got Trump elected. Their breathless coverage of the email non issue had 0 influence, it was entirely the fault of everyone else.
And it worked! No one blames the NYT now for their mistake in 2016. Which is why Greenwald thinks it’s the right thing to do to start emails 2.0.
This was typical elite-orientated journalism that articulated ideas to spread election talking points for Clinton. It was certainly no journalism, it was probably for rubbing some friends in Washington.
If you believe what is being said about the NYT it challenges a couple of core beliefs that many people (especially on this forum) might hold
1. Freedom of speech is not always a good thing. A free press reporting on topics like “but her emails” can have negative consequences, even if those journalists are acting in good faith.
2. People in the aggregate can’t be trusted to make sound judgements, even if that means democracy is built on shaky foundations. Give them all the information and let them take a call is a strategy that can backfire. Flat earth, anti vax, qanon are all ideologies with vast following online, regardless of how stupid they are.
When you challenge people’s core beliefs, it hurts them. They respond with downvotes.
True, but I think that doesn't matter. On the contrary, would be boring if we all believed the earth was some ball, wouldn't it.
They explicitly cover the aluminum tube and how the government used a news paper article to justify their stance. It also covers the famous 16 words from Bush [1].
I found it fascinating to learn about all the internal politics during this period and the war state shapes the opinion of the masses. How does one go about justifying a war that has left millions dead, maimed, and traumatized for life, that has cost (and continues to) trillions of dollars, and continues to shape the world we live in today? Highly recommended.
[1] https://www.pbssocal.org/programs/frontline/frontline-bushs-...
https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-bushs-war-part-2/
[2] https://www.factcheck.org/2004/07/bushs-16-words-on-iraq-ura...
OTOH, ISTR that she was at least accused of actively deceiving her editors.
Even ignoring how these accusations oversell some supposedly uniform position of the the paper, that sounds like a pretty good batting average.
What's worse is they continue to leverage their once-stellar reputations to sell second-rate "stuff" as "news". They've lowered to bar for the accepted definition of journalism.
They might not suck, but they're intentional pursuit falling has broad societal and cultural implications. Perhaps not 100% tabloid, but they use that tool enough to make it more and more legitimate.
To have a healthy and proper Democracy requires a coherent, honest and transparent Fourth Estate. That ship has sailed, and it was prior to Jan 2017.
I would imagine its probably because their advertising revenue has been falling down because of the internet. You have to be flexible with your standards when your revenue is declining.
https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2020-02-06/ny-...
Let’s say they covered Hunter Biden scandal. How much would that cost them? Quite a bit I bet
There has to be a way to present alternate ways of interpreting facts without immediately getting accused of partisan censorship. US media can't even agree on what the facts are without the partisan accusation coming out.
How to rebuild institutional trust once it's gone?
The issue, amazingly, is Fox News and it’s ilk. Yet, the conversation here is the NYT.
This is a problem on two grounds
1) people talk about what they know. So like many discussions people nerd out on what they have information on.
2) The issue of Correlation vs causation in Fox’s impact on its viewers is pushed away for another day, when things are worse.
Is conservative pandering media causing a break from reality, or are they simply doing what they need to when dealing with their audience. Or perhaps both?
Is having someone like Rupert Murdoch and his children running the show a good thing ?
How could this be prevented ?
That is because practically everyone on HN agrees Fox is bad, biased, etc. Therefore the debate is going to be implicitly about how bad the NYT is in relation to Fox.
A related factor is that it's hard for an educated person to get suckered by Fox. There are too many garish infographics and obvious nutjobs. It just does not give even a superficial impression of being Legitimate and Unbiased and Supported by the Best Experts. But the NYT does, and that's what makes it more dangerous.
If I go into "Uncle Cletus's Homeopathy Clinick", I kind of deserve whatever I get. But if another con man has a convincingly faked (or even real) Harvard M.D., then sets about poisoning lots of people through incompetence and apathy and greed, then everyone insists it can't possibly be his fault because he has an M.D. from Harvard...
...you can see why "Uncle Cletus is the real problem here" can seem nonresponsive. It is not even especially obvious to me which is "worse", "Uncle Cletus" or Fake M.D., even if we grant that Fake M.D. is somewhat better at medicine. I know I personally could get suckered by the latter but not the former, making the latter more dangerous to me.
So, same reason why scam emails are rife with spelling errors.
They might actually face more criticism if they don't turn away the part of the audience with half a brain first.
Maybe US is due for another go. Unfortunately this time there will be no neat geographic divide and it will probably resemble Russian civil war. That scares the shit out of me, I am Canadian btw. Delegitimization of the elections, stuffing the court, non-stop riots, armed militias. Good vs Evil narrative.
This Pandemic has not been that bad, imagine if this thing was more deadly.. there is no unity, republic verges on the brink
You say that like it's hyperbole but there's a hell of a lot of people who think we're on that track. What not everyone agrees on is whether it'll be a problem next Wednesday morning or a problem for our great^N grand kids.
I don't think removing information can work. You can however provide more plausible information. If you remove anything you might as well give it up because it will always be seen as paternalism not fitting a democracy.
In 2005 we already had insane conspiracies on the net. Instead of using them to elevate yourself to a mundane level, you better ignore them. People will get bored quickly.
The democrats greatest failure was probably not championing freedom and free speech. You don't give such a precious thing to your political enemies.
It is refreshing to see conservatives arguing for it. You shouldn't believe them, but liberals arguing for speech codes should reorient themselves. Best start would be yesterday.
And people just jump in with explanations of how it totally makes sense to act like that in the given the profit motive.
It sets a pretty low bar for expectations. Also, it gives a lot of power to individuals whose modus operandi is the above.
But why is this the expectation? You could also subscribe to and support a publication because they make the hard choices, also publish the unpopular news. Because you think this is important. However, if you do this, support the publication, but the publication starts chasing profit instead of truth, then in the US, joke's on you! Of course they would chase profit instead of truth, everybody will tell you.
It kind of reminds me of the Ferengi in Star Trek sometimes. Does the Star Trek universe perhaps offer any insight how they run a society when the entirety of this society is doing nothing but chase profit?
No, they needed to represent viewpoints that were palatable to their advertisers.
A US-centric, neo-liberal world-view does not really 'represent all viewpoints'.
What we're really seeing is the difference between those that actually want to "provide the best X possible as a business" and those that "want to make money in the market for X".
Everyone says they are the former, but the difference is that those that actually are sometimes go out of business rather than compromise too far. Those that are the latter may not want to compromise too far but, well, "the goal is to make a profit, right?"
Biases are inescapable, but there is no need to be fatalist about it.
To rip off a pg-ism, they are intentional moderates. Intentional moderates are boring.
Good journalism and opinion writing isn't boring, it's absolutely fascinating, and that's something I find The Economist lacks.
Why would you want that? Amateurs adding a personal spin on topics they don't understand is bad news. Reading that will just make you more misinformed.
I'm not asking for amateurs throwing in their two cents, I'm asking for actual journalists to do their job and speak truth to power.
As an example here is the type of story I want to see more of https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/sta...
> For decades, methadone — a synthetic opioid developed in the 1930s by a German company — was associated not with pain relief but with weaning addicts off heroin and other drugs. The word summoned an image of clinics, often in seedy parts of town.
I mean that's what I know methadon from. Always has been and still is.
And I also know that it's not like a "safe" replacement for heroin to kick yourself off. It's absolute shit. But it helps with the heroin withdrawal, which is absolutely worse.
(not that I have any experience with heroin addiction, but I know some people that work at these addict care centres, that distribute methadon (not sure how this works though))
> A case from 2009 epitomizes this divide. Two sisters, injured in a car accident in South King County, needed pain relief. One, with private insurance, received OxyContin, an expensive drug. The other, on Medicaid, received methadone — and within a week, overdosed and died.
but OxyContin is also shit.
for very different reasons than methadone, that I won't go into here right now.
but fact of the matter is that neither are commonly prescribed as pain killer meds, outside the US.
our politicians actually want less people to be on oxycodon (the generic) because it's terribly addictive, and campaign against it.
In case anyone is wondering -https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
In 2015, the publishing house Pearson sold their majority stake to a bunch of globalists: the Agnelli family, the Rotschilds, Cadbury, etc.[1]
I was not aware of this at the time, but noticed the change of direction a year or so later. Cancelled my subscription - sadly there are few real journalists left.
There’s been no change in editorial control or voice in the paper. It’s all you.
Also, I'm not sure if it was intentional or not - but using the word "Globalists" as a pejorative for the Rothschilds is a very common anti-semitic tactic.
Neoliberal has a clear definition. "Top 1% of the 1%" has a clear meaning. "Globalist" does not. "Globalism" isn't an ideology so far so I understand it.
For that reason I understand it to be a word that signals something about the writer more so than it describes something about the subject. But I could be overfitting this curve.
And attempting to sprinkle anti-semitism into it is just a (typical) attempt to make the word "globalist" socially unacceptable. Nothing to do with Jews, but hey, nice try.
Though generally I just refer to these people as Reptilians.
I have print subscriptions to the first 2 but I disagree because what I recall from working in blue collar jobs is that people who would benefit from that world view will not bother. they spend their days thinking about basic survival and when they pick up a paper (on the bog) just want to be entertained. Sadly the typical reader of the Economist never had to deal with anyone from the "lower" classes. They consider them as something they need protection from. A minimum wage, social safety net and working health care system usually goes a long way in preventing this divide from growing into a normal (like in the US - or very poor countries that share that class divide as a common property with the US).
Is this good? I don't think so, but it's worth being aware of, like to understand "why is that brand diluting itself with an opinion desk?" (I don't have a satisfying answer though)
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-anything-structurally-differe...
Like, that's what an editorial page is? What you are really saying is, they don't have the same bias as you. As for standards, that's really unfair. They have high standards and are much more apt to invite opposing opinions than the NYT, or WaPo. They refused to endorse Trump in 2016. Good people can disagree with you for real reasons, not because they have lower standards.
For example, the following are questioned and dismissed by large numbers of opinion pages in the WSJ and other Murdoch papers and media outlets:
* Is COVID a pandemic?
* Is climate change happening at a rate that is unprecedented in archeological and geological time?
* Is that climate change due to human activities?
Let alone ridiculous assertions like claiming that the Democratic party in the US espouses "socialist" policies or that the GOP party has "fiscal conservatism" as an underlying principle.
I can't think of a single politically involved billionaire who doesn't have at least a couple very onerous "keep the unwashed masses under control" type policies they are trying to advance.
Edit:typo
From 2008 through 2016, WSJ opinion hammered on the supposed fiscal recklessness of the US federal government, warned that inflation and interest rates would skyrocket, and fretted about bond vigilantes.
If you traded on this opinion and shorted long-term bonds, you would have lost a lot of money. Naturally, their promised inflation, interest rates and bond vigilantes never materialized.
Curiously, they've been mostly silent about fiscal recklessness since 2016, despite $3 trillion deficits.
Meanwhile, in the opinion pages, Strassell promoted it with abandon.
Totally. Without. Merit.
If I want to read about finance, I can read Matt Levine. If I want to read about law I can read Eugene Volokh. If I want to read about about security I can read Bruce Schneier. In every category I care about, there are writers who are experts who make their expert opinions known without me having to subscribe to the Economist, FT, or the WSJ, all of which are great, all of which I grew up reading.
But I think I'm done with their gatekeeping now, I don't need it.
WaPo and NYT are trash and that was made nakedly obvious in 2016. It's more blatant now than it was then, but I guess if you didn't notice it then, you won't notice it now.
The number of areas where you can personally vet your experts is very small. For the rest, you must either choose to be uninformed or you can choose an organization to vet those experts for you. Trust is transitive.
It’s a sad state of affairs when people confuse the two.
Journalism has stopped being about reporting what happened, and has become increasingly focused on telling you what to think about what happened. Perhaps it’s always been that way, but the internet has accelerated and further enabled it to the point where it feels like journalism as an institution is collapsing.
And on the other hand, it's about reporting what might happen. What I'm seeing around me is that "news reporting" is more often than not speculation about tomorrow's events, rather than reporting about today's events. Maybe it's for the same reason, reporters feel that today's events have already been covered to death because of the hype news cycle, so they turn to speculation rather than confirmation and contextualization?
No, it hasn't become any more about that than it has been for centuries. How it's changed within the recent past is it's become more diverse in the ideological slant of outlets, so every major outlet isn't telling you the same thing to think about what happened, regardless of slight divergences in the information they select to include about what actually happened. So, more of the difference in outlets is on narrative/spin than fact details. This makes the spin more noticeable.
In more specialized fields, sure nothing beats an expert.
That and obscure investments into shitcoins. I get that the FDA and every other public health agency worldwide has more pressing problems than quacks, but what are the SEC and their European counterparts doing all day? I'd expect them to investigate scams and questionably legal "investment" opportunities.
Raking in the $$$ fining banks for missing technicalities on reporting and whatnot.
Look at the incentives and you can predict the outcome.
It's the same reason the DOT spends their time harassing scrap haulers and dump trucks for being a few pounds overweight rather than trying to track down the people driving on no sleep or systematically skirting the rules. Fining people for petty BS is the financial meat and potatoes of their operation. Good Old Fashioned Police Work (TM) is just a loss leading sideshow to keep public approval high enough to get money. It's like how Red Bull's primary business is selling energy drinks but they also have a bunch of extreme sports ventures for PR purposes.
Pretty much every enforcement agency is like that. You want to see the EPA, OSHA or SEC or whoever levy big company ending fines that scare everyone into compliance then you need to take away the low effort to enforce petty stuff that is the bulk of their revenue stream.
Could you explain what you meant with it?
Do you actually read the economist? The publication has downgraded quality enormously since 2004, when I first start reading the economist as a subscriber and not casually.
For the economist to make sense you have to accept reality in very simplistic terms, e.g. "US/NATO good, Iran/Russia/China bad". If you can live with this simple worldview, than the ecconomist is fine.
All other publications are slowly falling victim to the parametdynamicser of the entertainment game, including ones that were also in that bracket not long ago. Mind you I'm not saying WaPo and NYT are trash now, they did start with a high rep and try to square the circle by staying there and getting people to pay for it.