The New York Times Surrendered to an Outrage Mob. Journalism Will Suffer for It

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/05/14/bret-stephens-new-york-times-outrage-backlash-256494

by hirundo • 6 years ago

7 5 6 years ago

oneiftwo• 6 years ago

it’s essential that mainstream journalistic institutions reaffirm their bona fides as disinterested purveyors of fact and honest brokers of controversy

This hasn't been true for decades. Almost all modern mainstream journalism is activist journalism. I think it's been normalized to the point that even journalists are unaware of their institutional bias.

zepto• 6 years ago

The authors of this piece are afflicted by Gel-Mann amnesia.

mydongle• 6 years ago

not because anything in it had been shown to be factually incorrect but because it had become controversial

But this is the standard by which journalists censor/cancel a lot of things? Why an exception for Ashkenazi Jews?

hirundo• 6 years ago

We can't, and shouldn't, trust media outlets to provide accurate diffs. But for text media it would be easy enough to poll them every X minutes and commit changes to an online git repo, accessible from the origin site as annotations.

It could be organized like a decentralized Wayback Machine, with volunteers tracking sites like people choose books in Fahrenheit 451. For major sites like NYT there could be multiple trackers, reducing the need for trust.

If that doesn't fit within fair use, maybe it should.

jakelazaroff• 6 years ago

First off, the article in question was an editorial, not reporting.

Second, the issue with the Henry Harpending reference isn’t that he’s a forever morally stained as a person. His career is built on bullshit theories, and he doesn’t get to wipe the slate clean with every article he publishes. It’s perfectly reasonable to redact a reference to his work if you have reason to believe his conclusions are tainted by ulterior motives.

The New York Times Surrendered to an Outrage Mob. Journalism Will Suffer for It

Related Stories