Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

Re:Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly bo... by grumblenum on Monday July 26, 2021 @08:37AM (#27958628)

In 2005 I was in a college dorm that provided the NYT in a common area. I picked up one and the first article I read was a column about Hurricane Katrina. The author interviewed a history professor who bewailed the failings of the president and the United States and how this was "worse than Antitem". In other words the esteemed Grey Lady interviewed an "expert" whose expertise has nothing to do with meteorology or disaster response to get a "Bush sucks, haha!" hot-take. Even as a know-nothing teenager (of strong anti-war sentiment at the time), I recognized that "area man says natural disaster proves Bush sucks" is just pablum. I put the paper down, and I have never picked up an NYT since.

Thanks to the hero who provided an archive link, so that I could skim this. This article appears to be NYT heroically defending a corporate sponsor against the vile slander of other content marketers. Still speaking truth to power, I see.

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Re:Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly bo... by shanecleveland on Monday July 26, 2021 @01:32PM (#27962347)

You used the term "column," which insinuates an opinion piece. All news publications have purposely-biased opinion pieces, and in the case of The NY Times, they will be limited to the clearly-marked op-ed section. And they also offer countering views, in many cases. Very different from news.

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Re:Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly bo... by JCVI-syn10 on Monday July 26, 2021 @01:48PM (#27962594)

> the first article I read was a column

A column is a personal opinion piece, not a news story.

> how this was "worse than Antitem [sic]"

I can't find any columns that mention Antietam from NYT published in 2005. Is there any reason to believe what you're describing actually happened?

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Re:Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly bo... by graycat on Monday July 26, 2021 @11:57AM (#27961038)

I used to live in New York State and, back before the Internet got very powerful, got frequent offers from the NYT to subscribe.

I had long since concluded that the NYT was junk, resented the offers, and wrote a scathing denuciating letter to the Publisher ending with I don't want your work for free.

Actually, I was a little too hard on the NYT: On paper it can be used to wrap dead fish heads.

My short recommendation for the NYT and the rest of the mainstream media is, first, to get the level of quality of writing and information up to common standards for high school term papers.

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Re:Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly bo... by commandlinefan on Monday July 26, 2021 @02:07PM (#27962892)

> worse than Antitem

Does that refer to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Antietam? I can't even put together the comparison.

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