Re:Statement on New York Times Article
by skissane on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @02:15AM
(#26163616)
I think rather than continuing to debate relatively peripheral issues (such as consistency or the culture of psychiatrists), let me just state what I think the crux of the issue is:
I believe that journalists ought to honour all requests for pseudonymity, unless they believe there is a strong public interest in not doing so in any particular case, and if they believe there is such a strong public interest, they should be explicit about what they think it is, so others can judge their public interest claim. I think this is the decent thing to do, and sustains a culture of respecting people's privacy.
NYT did not follow that standard in the case of Scott Alexander.
Sure, maybe I'm wrong. I'm open to evidence of this. As far as I can determine, psychiatrists are not required to keep their political views a secret.
>By contrast, if someone asks that we respect their privacy, we ought to respect it unless we have good reason not to.
But what are the implications of that for consistency? Consider that you're free to grant someone's request for privacy even if there isn't an overriding reason to do so or not to do so (just as you're free to give someone a gift without a reason). So just because the NYT honored one such request in the past doesn't entail that they're bound to honor all such requests in future. Again, the only interesting question is whether their reasons were good in each case.