Yeah no dogwhistle there…
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So it’s “news” when you need it to be and “unrelated to the newsroom” when it’s inconvenient? Fact is the paper published it and stands behind it, that means the criticism of publishing it falls exactly where it should: the NYT’s poor choice to promote the use of the military to suppress protest. You start to see exactly why that logic falls apart, because it is clearly an excuse creating the foundation for moving the goalposts in the discussion at hand.
Now as to the newsroom being responsible for presenting view of MANY people’s feelings: fuck that. I don’t want their movie critics just regurgitating the popular opinion based on what is marketed the best - because that actually creates ideological bubbles unlike running a functioning editorial department.
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Are you saying that the newsroom side of The Times has not been extensively covering the threat of using military force against protesters? Yeah, that is quite demonstrably not correct.
What does this mean? The Times publishes opinion pieces all the time that directly contradict the views expressed in other Opinion pieces. Are they “standing behind” multiple opposing views at once?
Well, I didn’t say that. The newsroom is responsible for reporting what happens, based on the journalistic practices of The Times (certainly not a thing of perfection). The Opinion section’s stated mission is to present many views, often differing.
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Yes? That’s not hard when it’s a team of people.
EDIT
It’s also not the point of the criticism against NYT, just a point that the opinions expressed by the editorial team are the opinions they publish. Period. Literally the only argument against that is that they are being amoral because they want any or all of: wanting more traffic, wanting more money, wanting political favors, wanting to bring more conservative readers, or just wanting to be provocative. None of which are really great philosophies for the news to have.
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No, I’m saying that writing up an article that included quotes from Sen. Cotton so that his views were expressed but within a larger context was the way to handle it.
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I’ve said absolutely nothing about how you are saying what you are saying. Your tone hasn’t come up once. I am challenging your opinions, which is the purpose of this board. Not once did I suggest you should change the tone of your message in any way.
As a moderator, I am challenging your good-faith belief that, as you said, you do not apparently believe military-style tactics are being used on protestors right now, with your statement that “Cotton’s call for something that likely won’t actually happen” seems to suggest “overwhelming force” isn’t already being applied to clear protestors or otherwise engage today. Frankly, there are very few situations in which I would be likely to let a post drawing that conclusion stand out of context given what’s going on outside right now.
As a user, I am trying, and failing, to understand where you are drawing the line, because you appear to not have one from your comments, and I’m not sure if you’re aware that your posts could be interpreted that way.
As for Putin: There is, I think, something to be said for someone calling for a diplomatic action to be taken, versus someone calling for imminent and direct violence against people right now being considered “equal” that, again, points to my statement above.
“Why is it ok for Putin to call for diplomatic change, but not ok for a sitting US senator to call for attacks to continue, but with even more violence, in this ongoing event right now?” Is a really really weird question to be asking. and yes one that, if you truly believe what you are saying, I am literally out of words to know how to respond to. IMHO you are asking why war games are ok if war isn’t.
Anyway, it’s clear your position is immutable. I just hope I’ve helped shed some light on why other members of this community might be perceiving your position as terrible.
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LOL Oren, I’ve known for MANY years that a large number of people on this board hate my freaking guts (at least virtually, ha) and that this is based on the fact that they think my views about many things are, as you say, terrible. And I keep coming here anyway – I guess that’s just me practicing what I preach, in terms of choosing to be presented with views I do not agree with, and being OK with that – in fact, preferring it over echo chambers. Again, I’ve known for MANY years that this is a minority position on bb. What I can do is stay true to my beliefs, and learn to be less offensive in how I go about expressing them. That’s for my benefit, so I can continue to grow and evolve as a person. I do not assume that this perspective is shared by other community members. Now, I do know from my years of being here, that some people do agree with them. That’s nice, but not what I come here for.
As for “tone policing,” well, I guess this is why I find that rule to be so inconsistently applied. You accusing someone of driving trollies, when the opinions they are stating are ones they are honestly relaying (along with the thinking behind them), and there is no evidence of coming from a place of driving trollies (and are they really out of line with the views I’ve shared here for years?) – I’d say that’s you policing my tone as being driving trollies.
Finally, calling for the US military to be used to suppress protesters IS different than local police forces who are militarized. It is different legally, it is different operationally, it is different narratively. US police has been using military equipment and tactics for decades. That is simply not new. What is new is sitting US politicians calling for the use of the military on the public.
Based on how well this seems to be working for Trump in the past couple days, I am going to stick with my current take, that allowing these people a limited bit of airtime, is leading to many people in many important quarters being quite turned off, and becoming much more public in their doing so. Mattis is a very good example.
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You are confusing me, as a moderator, asking you about your position. That’s part of why I try to stay out of most discussions, and part of why I clarified that point above in my response.
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Or I mean – they actually believe in presenting views from a variety of perspectives, including those that most everyone at The Times finds repugnant. I take that at (somewhat) face value, even if those choices are often, as some here have accurately pointed out, coming from a privileged Ivory Tower perspective, which of course colors those judgements.
But I’m not here to convince you, I’m simply expressing my point of view, which I thought was worthy of being part of the mix. You most certainly are welcome to vehemently oppose it, and even think lesser of me for it. For what it’s worth, while I disagree with many of the views expressed in this thread, I don’t think lesser of anyone for holding them or sharing them, especially if they can do it reasonably.
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The whole thread is worth reading, but:
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There’s nothing to take at face value, they didn’t claim they were presenting a view they disagreed with. They published a view and then used the usual excuse of saying it doesn’t count as being published by us because we only published it for someone else. Institutions who express views hand picked by people are expressing the views of those people, and those views reflect on the institution - period. There’s no extra clauses and layers and justifications that get added to that, and even if their primary reason for choosing it was because they found it repugnant then they chose it to be provocative - and provocative newspapers are bad newspapers.
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It means that the NYT lent the credibility of its masthead to him, as it does to any other opinion piece contributor. If I told people here that I’ve had an opinion piece published in the Times (I haven’t) they’d assume that I had something of value that Very Serious People thought I should share in The Paper of Record. That reaction would quickly change, however, if I said it was about my belief that the Earth is flat or that space aliens disguised as humans walk amongst us or some such nonsense.
The NYT editorial board claims that they are selective only print quality, reality-based pieces that don’t single out specific groups for persecution. Fine. But, as the educated and intelligent and politically aware members of the board should know, Cotton’s piece is none of those things.
And no, it doesn’t matter if lots of ignoramuses believe him. More than half of Americans don’t know that 6-million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, but I doubt the Times publish an opinion piece from a David Irving type claiming that the Nazis executed 500k Jews, most of whom were partisans and enemy combatants
[not that it matters, but since you seem to require some credentials: former journalist and broadcast news producer at a network; have put more study and thought than most into the operations of the NYT; have the paper in my RSS feed and read articles from it daily, some of which I link to here]
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The fact is, The Times is very clear about their policies for the Opinion section. You think this is the first time they have taken heat for publishing something there? You may not agree with it, but they are very clear, publicly, about what the section represents, what it does not, and how this is separated by a firewall from the newsroom.
You don’t have to agree with it, believe it, any of that. Certainly I’m not convincing you, and that is not my goal – I am simply putting a different view into the mix, which I believe is worthwhile.
But to make it sound like they are propping up Tom Cotton and the opinions he expressed, simply because they published it? I have to say, I just find that to be a really naive take on what goes on with The New York Times Opinion section. It does not sound like you are a regular reader of The Times. Me, I’ve been reading it for over three decades, regularly – in addition to hundreds of other sources from all across the spectrum – including Drudge, regularly.
And you know what – I am very, very, very far left in my personal beliefs. But do I completely write off one of the actually most important news organizations on the planet, because of a Tom Cotton Opinion piece that says awful shit – awful shit I will very possibly bear the brunt of, because chances are, I will be out in the streets myself at points, protesting, like I have done throughout my life, including direct action protests that involved being attacked by riot police doing the exact same shit as we’re seeing now (back then, it barely got coverage…)
No. There’s an awful lot to be outraged about these days. This is not even close to the top of my list.
It sounds like your view is that no credible journalistic outlet can possibly publish something without inherently endorsing it, even within the context of an opinion section.
I understand that you have a background in journalism (and I have also worked around news media for many years), but all I can say is that not everyone in journalism would agree with that take.
By the way – to what were you referring when you said:
I don’t remember having done that, but if I did and you can make reference to it, I will absolutely try to learn from it, because it wasn’t my intent to do that.
Or… I didn’t actually say that or imply it. Or did you simply mean, being in any way familiar with The New York Times, which is what we’re discussing here? I did suggest that if people are going to make large sweeping generalizations that don’t seem to imply knowledge of the subject, they may want to look at context. Not exactly “credentials” if that’s what you were referring to?
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THURSDAY, JUNE 04, 2020
My People
In one Slack room, two employees who work in the Times’ customer service center were stunned by the rate of cancellations.
Employee A: they have to first get aligned on what the company is going to say
which is always tougherEmployee B: 172 cancels so far for this…. every time I refresh it just grows faster and faster
Employee A: 203 editorial cancellations between 4 - 5 = the highest hourly total ever in the data we have
buckle up everyone!
Really worth going through the whole article, as it follows the conversation in and around the New York times, beyond just the subscription cost of crossing this line.
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They endorsed a Tiananmen Square solution for the U S of A.
What next? A piece from NANBLA endorsing sex with boys?
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No, my view is that credible journalistic outlets lend their credibility to someone if they provide him with a platform to say what he wants. That’s why it’s a feather in one’s cap to get a piece published in the NYT. That’s why credible journalistic outlets have standards that usually prevent someone from using their platforms to spread misinformation – especially disinformation that can get people hurt in the midst of a crisis.
There are plenty of outlets that have much lower standards than the NYT claims to have, yes, and I’m sure their employees follow along with that. None of the outlets I worked for in my first career (I’ll go so far as to include my HS and college papers) would have published or broadcast an opinion piece like this.
From your earlier response to @anon18417063
@orenwolf has made it clear many times on this site that these sorts of questions are not appropriate as a means of calling someone’s opinion into doubt.
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