Not sure about anyone else but every time I read an article about something I'm actually an expert in or few times about myself or a company I've worked for I see at least a handful of factual errors and/or exaggerations that aren't real.
I think these articles are pretty comical coming from the New York Times, a for profit company, that has been cutting costs amidst really serious editorial failures.
I would believe this much more if it was from an independent news source. It’s like a car salesman telling you great buying a car is.
It’s reasonable that the Times would have such a biased, unfounded article. But not so much that anyone pay attention to or make decisions based on it.
> a for profit company, that has been cutting costs amidst really serious editorial failures.
Extra care and attention to detail isn't going to just happen unless there's enough money flowing in solid journalism to allow for it.
It's quite possible that the cost cutting is connected to the editorial failures, and is a consequence of falling revenues. And the NYT as a whole is in a position to see how those things relate.
This isn't to place the NYT above criticism. They could stand to up their game. The profession at large could when it comes to painting accurate pictures of the world and the NYT is better than lots of sources. But it isn't going to happen unless people can get paid to do it.
And unless we pay for it, it's another place we'll be the product. Because the other models for journalism are (a) selling our attention to advertisers or (b) propagandists selling our pre-decided opinion.
In what way is NYT not an independent news source? It's not owned by some giant media conglomerate, it's family owned. And last I checked it was one of few media companies reporting good financial results, not cutting costs.
Good point. I meant that they are not independent from their owners’ profit motive. They are publicly traded [0] so their motive is not truth, it is maximizing shareholder equity under US law.
So arguments like this article, even cloaked under “opinion” don’t carry weight because it’s just propaganda to sell more papers.
> their motive is not truth, it is maximizing shareholder equity under US law.
There's nothing about those things that is mutually exclusive. If your entire business depends upon you being a truth teller it is in the interests of both the company and your shareholders for you to tell the truth. Manufacturing a story could be devastating for NYT's reputation, and consequently for their shareholders.
> Not sure about anyone else but every time I read an article about something I'm actually an expert in or few times about myself or a company I've worked for I see at least a handful of factual errors and/or exaggerations that aren't real.
News is only the first rough draft of history [1] [2].
Newspapers are definitely not perfect, and they definitely make errors, but there's no better way to get such a breadth of timely, relatively reliable information to a general reader.
I think the news cycle has to do with the quality of news as well. Sometimes it's just impossible to get the proper facts within the first 24h of breaking news. This is why I read weekly periodicals.
Not really, I still find lots of errors on recounts of past events. Aside from a few articles, that almost always come from rare good journalists, I don't really see any research on most news media, not for recent events, nor for historical accounts.
> Not really, I still find lots of errors on recounts of past events. Aside from a few articles, that almost always come from rare good journalists, I don't really see any research on most news media, not for recent events, nor for historical accounts.
You're looking in the wrong place. You'll find the first rough draft of history in a newspaper, you'll find the final draft in a book (or at least the most polished draft).
I often find lots of bugs in software that's been rushed out the door to fill and urgent need, it's the name with newspapers.
I have witnessed the same and would also like to include that the journalists often land, shall we say, sub-par 'experts' as interviewees. I can rattle off 50 highly qualified, well respected professionals in my field who have opposing viewpoints yet time and again I read the hyperbolic opinions of an under qualified "Dr Phil".
I've seen misquotes in articles on CNN and MSNBC after having just watched the live video on youtube or C-SPAN. Some of them seemed purposeful to fit the journalists narrative, and at least with CNN could not find any official channel for submitting errors.
100% which makes me nervous about reporting in areas I'm not familiar with.
Many people I know who have been interviewed said something to the effect that "newspapers twist words to fit their angle". They also happened to be in positions of power, so it's hard for me to tell if they simply wanted to control the narrative and the newspaper wasn't going along for the ride it if the newspaper was the one with the hidden agenda. Probably a mix of both.
Yup, most news are either fake news or simply poorly researched/misinterpretated. You cant be in the business of pushing so many stories every single day and pretend that you are covering them properly.
My parents are conservation biologists who study sea turtles. As sea turtles are relatively charismatic animals that everyone knows, they get a lot of press requests. From as early as I could read the ensuing articles, I could see the divergence between what my parents could have ever possibly said and what made it to print. Even in the complete absence of political bias, journalists are a pretty noisy channel.
One huge leap forward was the rise of Wikipedia. Now the journalists recite Wikipedia facts for background, so I see fewer sentences like "Sea turtles, like other mammals,..."
When I make a mistake at my job which could impact others, I report it immediately. Do journalists do the same? Newspapers are infamous for publishing retractions and corrections at the bottom of page 17, in tiny print, 2 weeks later -- if at all.
