The NYT vs. SSC episode reminds me of a conflict in Mormonism, the religion I was raised in. A Mormon named John Dehlin criticized the church, and Mormon apologists published a hit piece about him, taking quotations out of context and claiming he was not a true believer. The apologists ended up experiencing a lot of backlash, and their organization, FARMS, had to close down.

The NYT piece on SSC felt like a religious crusade to reveal a blasphemer, taking quotations out of context and making weird, tenuous connections to other known blasphemers.

I’d encourage some HN commenters to do the same, funnily enough

Narratives can be dangerous, pernicious or not. For example, on every article about a big tech company, regardless of the facts at play, people will happily comment why they think it contributes to their narrative of that big company trying to grab power. I’m frustrated more when journalists do it, though, because they have more reach.

For example: the WhatsApp privacy policy change that happened recently was grossly misreported. The actual change to share data between the companies happened years ago.

If big tech is experiencing a lack of trust from their cannon fodder, perhaps it's their own doing?

People found out what they were doing and got angry. As if the time line excuses the behaviour. At best, it wasn't properly communicated through the right channels with the proper context so that everyone who used it understood the ramifications when it first happened and that just makes it worse.

CJR just recently did a hitpiece on another journalist that was filled with provable lies. Once shown irrefutable evidence that they got many of the facts wrong they refuse to do a retraction.

I would love to see real truth to power journalism again but these folks need to look in the mirror.

Hehe. I try not to jump on bandwagons and leave empty comments that say "this," but, c'mon. The NYT just did our Slate Star buddy dirty, and now they're saying they need more power. Yeah, your perspective is ... quite valid.

> As journalists, we all view this as a horrifying assault on the public’s right to know, and on our own status as brave defenders of the public good. And that is all true, for what it’s worth.

The author really should have left this perspective out of the essay; it's vain and distracts from the valid larger point.

If powerful people can "no comment" the Washington Post and other significant outlets because the media can no longer extract a penalty for doing so, then they only really have to worry about crossing each other. The public interest is likely to suffer as this trend continues.

(edited for clarity)

The self-righteous arrogance of this author is comical.

The tone was not that of an outrage juicer opinion piece to me. Rather it was that of someone finally peeling off the sugar coating in exasperation. I'm OK with that.

This 100%

Yikes, that escalated like the Ackermann function. Please don't post like this to HN—it's clearly not in the spirit of the site, regardless of how wrong another commenter is or you feel they are. You can make your substantive points thoughtfully, so please do that instead.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm sorry if my wording was unclear and prone to misinterpretation. I'm not saying that Hamilton Nolan doxxed anyone.

I'm talking about mainstream journalists in general, since that's what the article talks about: mainstream journalism, and I'm pointing out a specific example of wrongdoing in mainstream journalism (but I could name many more), and how they're really not "defenders of the public good".

Particularly when the largest news organizations are run to enrich and empower some of the richest men in the world. Slim, Murdoch, Bezos. All run the most widely read, widely respected papers in the country.