There is a separation between NYT the corporation and the editorial staff. Just a couple of weeks ago, there was an article in NYT complaining about CCTVs installed in NYT office [0]. Should we now dismiss every article in NYT complaining about surveillance (especially workplace surveillance) as hypocritical and ironic, because if NYT thinks surveillance is bad, why do they do it themselves?
Newspapers like NYT are one of the few institutions where workers enjoy a level of freedom from management in doing their work. The other example is tenured professors. We should celebrate this, not mock it.
> Newspapers like NYT are one of the few institutions where workers enjoy a level of freedom from management in doing their work. The other example is tenured professors.
PhD student here. I think the impression that tenured professors have freedom from management is an illusion at best. As far as I can tell, getting a PhD, getting hired as a professor, and getting tenure seem to filter out people who would challenge the system. It's easy for a university to say that their tenured faculty are free to do whatever they want if they select and cultivate people who won't take them up on that offer. (Now that I write this, I'm reminded of web hosting companies that offer unlimited storage or bandwidth but get irritated if you actually use a lot of storage or bandwidth.)
Personally, I'm leaning towards the conclusions of the financial independence/early retirement community: real freedom comes when you have "FU money". Money is the unit of freedom in the US.
I expect the same is also true of whatever freedom may exist for NYTimes writers. The site has taken a sharp and extremely homogeneous ideological slant in recent years on a wide array of different topics. This is ostensibly indicative of editorial manipulation, but it's also possible that instead they simply make sure to hire only journalists that already align with their biases and will, at the minimum, toe the line without needing to be told.
Compare this with people such as e.g. Glenn Greenwald who seems to have achieved "FU money" and you actually see insightful and meaningful journalism [1] that isn't boxed into predictable ideological or partisan tropes. Of course he doesn't live in the US anymore either. Money isn't the unit of freedom in the US - it's the unit of freedom in the world. Not such a bad thing in many ways though. In times past your blood lineage was the unit of freedom. Money can be earned even from humble beginnings, but lineage cannot.
FU money is the freedom to leave an organization, not to improve or change it. Those that want to do good may feel trapped in their org because they feel that should they leave things will get worse.
The question is not whether one has biases or not, but whether or not they're held captive to them. When you read a headline from let's say CNN with what sort of accuracy can you predict exactly what sort of slant the article will come with, even when such is not implied directly by the headline? It's going to be quite high because the site is held captive by its own biases.
Of course everybody is influenced by their biases, but fortunately we have the intelligence to ensure that our biases are but a component of our decision making process rather than being that process in and of themselves. Because of this when you find an individual (or organization) that makes some effort to be impartial it can be difficult to determine where they will land on many issues. As an example Greenwald is gay and lives in Brazil with his husband. The current president of Brazil is Jair Bolsonaro who has made statements such as 'I could not love a gay son; if I had one I would prefer he die in an accident.' This [1] is Greenwald explaining why Bolsonaro was elected.
It's easy to expect to see him just repeat tropes. And this is something that increasingly often the NYTimes is doing such as here [2] where they chose to publish, without elaboration: "Mr. Bolsonaro is ... a brash nationalist whose populist appeal comes partly from his use of Twitter and his history of making crude statements about women, gay people and indigenous groups." Bolsonaro won by a 10 point margin in a country that was and remains very liberal. The only reason the NYT characterization is not overtly fake is because of the use of the weasel word "partly."
Instead Greenwald acknowledged the tropes are going to make up some part of Bolsonaro's support, but then got to the important question - why completely normal and unbiased people, and even some LGBT types, would be voting for people such as Bolsonaro. Obviously he does not want to do this. We like to demonize people we don't like - it's human nature. He'd like to imagine Bolsonaro's base is just loaded with monsters and slur them all as being racists, misogynists, homophobes, or whatever else. But this is, of course, not the case. And so he ends up considering things he would probably rather not consider. And that, rising above one's biases and petty instincts, is at the heart of effective, meaningful, and responsible journalism.
Actually, it's a lot more fence-sitting and clinical, and 'just the facts' than Greenwald's. So, in short, exactly the sort of predictable, unsurprising, 'both sides' horseshit that I expect from CNN.
Both publications are biased, neither publication's biases result in particularly surprising or unpredictable coverage, so I ask again - what is the difference? That Greenwald's a bit more introspective?
There's introspective writers in the CNN opinion pieces, too - you just might not be biased towards their flavour of introspection. I know I'm not.
Imagine you strip the references from the CNN article referencing Bolsonaro winning and you otherwise did not know this. And you now read this article. Would you expect him to win? Would you have any idea how he could possibly win, let alone by a large margin? The media's job is to inform you, yet our media increasingly often does not do this. Their only notion of why he might have been elected was to 'keep the workers party out'? 'Man, our socialist candidate was arrested for corruption. Wellp, I guess we better go vote far right now!' Yeah...
On one side of a spectrum you have propaganda, on the other side you have journalism. The two are inherently at opposite ends. Propaganda aims to influence people and push them towards an ideology, journalism aims to inform people and let them make their own decisions. A disturbingly large percentage of all western facing media is now more of the kind aiming to influence than aiming to inform. Greenwald is a shining exception to this in that even in topics that he was a resounding conflict of interest in, you find reporting that focuses primarily on informing instead of persuading.
I think the degree of disobedience from faculty varies between disciplines and schools. Professors in the humanities seem more inclined towards activism or iconoclasm than STEM. This isn't a dig at anyone, it's just that people who study social structures, interactions, and trends are seemingly more inclined to exert their ideological freedom(s). Meanwhile in STEM fields I think you're totally right: we keep our heads down and hyper-optimize for publishing research, leaving little space for rebellion or questioning of the academic status quo.
I don't know what dystopian world you want to live in, but any time I see a company profit off sheer hypocrisy, I am going to call it out and mock it. They can have freedom all they want, but this article is generating clicks and revenues for Parent Corp, so they deserve the scrutiny. This isn't some public service they are providing.
Asking for curiosity: Given the tenured faculty comparison, should we blame tenured faculty who criticize predatory lending when their university accepts students with the same predatory loans?
Or perhaps a more direct comparison: Are tenured faculty at D1 sports universities hypocritical for researching the benefits of more funding going towards education and less towards massive stadiums?
1) The faculty member from University A writes an article criticizing University B, without mentioning that University A also has the same problems.
2) The faculty member from University A writes an article criticizing a set of problems, including examples from both University A and B.
The subtle distinction between both #1 and #2 is why people have different opinions on this. Many people consider #1 to be hypocritical and #2 to be fair.
It would never be pointed out at all if you're following case #2 though if you're in a position of the OP though. The university wouldn't allow the article. The net result is a loss.
If people can't criticise at all due to some level of hypocrisy (which is separated from the author in this case!) then we all end up in a worse spot.
I don't think there is a universal criteria for what constitutes whether an action is criticizable or not. I think more importantly is that the standards, whatever they may be, are applied uniformly, despite the circumstance and scenario. It isn't hard to imagine other scenarios which are seen as "lesser" where this wouldn't even be a question: of course you do, but for some reason we think that as an increase of import or salary, or whatever metric you may have in mind, all of a sudden some gray area is introduced. Stay true to your standards, and let it guide you.
I wouldn't put up with this type of hypocrisy from my frozen yogurt shop, my clothing store, or coffee shop, so I shouldn't put up with it with my news organizations, schools and universities and politicians. The inputs to the situation might be different, but the output should be the same. Otherwise, we are being the hypocrite as well.
If the lecturer gave a lecture and handed out fliers for the thing they were criticising without explaining that this was an example of the same problem the yes 100%.
The only way the article, its writer, the editor and the organisation should not be ridiculed is if they explicitly reference their own t's and c's in the article. Or if we all agree this is not news but entertainment and should not be takrn seriously (or shared on hacker news)
> Or if we all agree this is not news but entertainment and should not be takrn seriously (or shared on hacker news)
I've hardly seen news in my life that wasnt actually just profit seeking entertainment.
I have never understood why society praises these huge corporations. They do not have your best interest at heart. They are not doing a public service. They are a private entity seeking money and power just like every other private company.
"Welcome to PHY 4509, Classical Electromagnetism. You should not be here, this school is too expensive. If you would like to discuss transferring, you can find me in my office Tuesday and Thursday from 9 to 11AM. This message will repeat in thirty seconds."
Would it be better if their journalists all just ignored the issue, or issued corporate-approved screeds about how whatever it is that their corporate owners are doing is just fine? Because to me both those options seem worse than hypocrisy.
I'll grant you that diving into Google's TOS without mentioning their own is a bit tone-deaf.
Journalists disclose when they or their parent companies have any vested interest in the companies they cover. It seems like the article could have more journalistic integrity to note that Google isn’t the only one to follow the trend and their company does so as well.
I'm not sure I like the alternative, where articles like this would not be allowed and companies' bad behavior would never get called out in the media.
Because let's face it, that's the more likely non-hypocritical scenario than the one where corporations behave nicely.
But you're assuming 4k word privacy policies are bad behaviour. The NYT is asserting this, but clearly doesn't believe it institutionally, so why should we accept this rather strange claim at face value? What's wrong with a privacy policy that has 4k words, especially for a service as complex and powerful as what Google provides?
You don't have to accept anything at face value. The whole point is that you are able to consume different points of view and make up your own mind on the matter.
This theme seems to come up a lot with different topics, not just privacy policies. Would it be better for NYT to NOT be hypocritical and just not report on accessibility if they don't implement it correctly themselves? Would it be better if it as a whole never verified sources given that their editorials are largely their own opinions? Personally, I'd take the "hypocrisy" because I understand that in large corps, typically the right hand doesn't talk to the left hand.
Well .... yes? It'd be better for the NYT to not report on something that clearly is overblown and doesn't matter!
Accusations of hypocrisy are useful because they act as a reality check. If 4k word privacy policies were so terrible the NYT wouldn't have one. Clearly nobody cares, so journalists should have taken this as a strong cue that they're chasing a non-story, almost certainly due to their own strong biases and desires. This isn't some evidence of heroic journalistic integrity, it's evidence they're spinning something out of nothing.
Yes, to say we should require otherwise is to embrace the status quo. Demanding that everybody hold their employer accountable for any breach is simply an unreachable standard, given the power distribution between employers and employees and the lack of sufficient "good" employers. So shifting the conversation to complaints about complaints (for not being sufficiently motivated to risk everything trying to burn the system down) is just distraction and helping the status quo even more.
On the other hand, shouldn't management/leadership of journalism firms be held just as accountable for their actions as others?
I think we're too quick to give a pass to business/leadership people for unethical behavior we rationalize to be good for business -- in education, journalism and anywhere else.
> Newspapers like NYT are one of the few institutions where workers enjoy a level of freedom from management in doing their work.
Then why do these articles not also criticize the NYT for these practices? Google is an easy target for newspapers because they are competitors for traffic and ads. Show me NYT reporters calling out their own practices and I will believe they enjoy this level of freedom from management.
They are regarded as among the world’s best reporters. They can Google up their own privacy policy just like anyone else, no disturbance of the editorial/sales wall necessary.
> Newspapers like NYT are one of the few institutions where workers enjoy a level of freedom from management in doing their work.
That is not the case. Every every reporter has an editor he or she must report to. Sure, reporters are given some freedom on the stories they pursue, but it's hardly a hands-off approach.
I believe they are saying there is a separation between the editors and the rest of the Corp. The editors aren’t the ones coming up with the sites privacy policy.
> Newspapers like NYT are one of the few institutions
by institutions I'll assume you mean journalistic ones. Cause employees of non-consumer facing corporations have far more freedom.
The thing is, journalism, good journalism, and certainly public service journalism, no longer requires an institution. Don't believe in the lies that claim otherwise.
That depends a lot on how you define "good journalism".
Journalism is ultimately writing about what you see and investigating it to get the facts. Most stories are broken by just one journalist, big ones sometimes multiple. Journalists don't earn very much either. This isn't an expensive endeavour compared to many things even quite small companies routinely do, like build and run a TV advertising campaign.
Moreover a lot of hard-hitting journalism appears to run on a shoestring. Look at Project Veritas. It's breaking a series of scoops about the internal behaviour of Valley firms, and it seems to basically be one or two people plus some cameras and a website.
I don't know how "shoestring" Project Veritas is, but it's not a particularly good source for unbiased information.
Breaking a good, big story takes time and time takes money. Journalists don't earn a ton, but great journalists do pretty well. Their work and the merit of their work is considered worth paying for. The money has to come from somewhere.
The best a good news organization can do is not allow the money to directly influence the journalism. At least in theory then the source of the money - within reason - is somewhat irrelevant. Historically, that's advertising or subscription. People got so used to free or nearly-free journalism in the late 1800s that even today people bristle at subscription, particularly for a non-physical product. So you have advertising.
What makes you think it's worse than the New York Times?
I've indeed not claimed journalism takes no money. I'm just pointing out it's not expensive. Corporations nobody has heard of routinely piss away more money than is spent on breaking a major news story by large papers on vanity website redesigns. News is extremely cheap, especially these days - so cheap it's literally given away for free.
> News is extremely cheap, especially these days - so cheap it's literally given away for free.
This is fundamentally wrong. It's subsidized (largely by advertising), not naturally cheap. It's like looking at Google and saying "man, software development must be cheap, they're giving away this search engine!"
Good reporting is time and labor-intensive. It also has an extremely short shelf life, meaning the time available to extract value is limited. A single news story is financially valuable for a very short period of time.
No, it's naturally cheap, even when advertising is taken into account.
Again, compare the cost of a news story vs many other things. Advertising campaigns are also time and labour intensive and usually only provide value for a short space of time. Yet people who do advertising work often earn more than journalists. News is simply not labour intensive, especially given that the vast majority of stories are not investigative and require nearly no effort to put together. Plus, the labour isn't well paid.
> No, it's naturally cheap, even when advertising is taken into account.
You haven't supported your argument all that well. First of all, ads have a significantly longer shelf-life than news stories and can often be re-used. Even short-term ads have value for weeks.
Second, creating a single, non-"investigative" (this is a nebulous term in this context) story takes, typically, 20-40 man hours to create and has value for typically 24 hours. 40 hours is in itself relative as a measure of cost, but against the term for recouping costs, it's very expensive. Without ads, this wouldn't be a viable business.
That essay is an opinion piece, not an article, and ironically for you the office surveillance was almost certainly installed by NYT corporate (or its designee), so the hypocrisy you raise cannot even exist according to the terms you provide unless you remove the separation between corp and editorial.
> Newspapers like NYT are one of the few institutions where workers enjoy a level of freedom from management in doing their work.
Eh, not really. They recently shuttered their daily political cartoon section, mainly due to a submission they published that was labelled as anti-Semitic.
Newspapers like NYT are one of the few institutions where workers enjoy a level of freedom from management in doing their work. The other example is tenured professors. We should celebrate this, not mock it.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/opinion/surveillance-came...