I'm not fully convinced. What I expect from a news venue is accurate reporting.
I see very little wherever I look. Back during the 2016 election our "paper of record" failed us. They chose to misrepresent a lot of the news, and bias was very evident. They intentionally mis-used "the power of the Recording Secretary" to decide which news s…
I'm not fully convinced. What I expect from a news venue is accurate reporting.
I see very little wherever I look. Back during the 2016 election our "paper of record" failed us. They chose to misrepresent a lot of the news, and bias was very evident. They intentionally mis-used "the power of the Recording Secretary" to decide which news should be featured more or less prominently and in some cases, opinion was presented as news.
Villains abound, and what drove this shift away from objectivity remains uncertain, however my confidence in the NYT will never be fully restored. I still read their stuff but from now on I'll use my critical eye to look for the moment a story pivots. Same as with most other news sources I catch that moment all too easily and all too frequently.
That’s an interesting idea Gary. You. have a talent for aggregation from different sources that I must lack. I read articles assiduously and give them the benefit of the doubt. Unless I read/hear something contradictory within a short while, the story holds firm in my mind. That is of course for sources that enjoy a reputation for probity, like the Times, Guardian, Globe and Mail, New Yorker, Atlantic et al.
Of course I realize that no story is ever fully accurate. Reporters inevitably carry their own perspectives with them and of course there is a limit to their sources. I assume you and I could be tasked with covering the same event and our stories might vary with some degree of significance.
I must say though, given the above, that I don’t expect malfeasance from the papers I read - a la Fox News for instance. I expect a general level of accuracy, innovative reporting styles and coherence.
Op-Ed’s are different. My assumption with them is that they will be intelligently written, supported with a thesis and indicate some recognition that there are two sides.
Maybe I am simply naive, but the sources I mention have been reliable. I don’t read in a “gotcha” vein. Perhaps I should be more rigorous.
I’m completely in the dark with your phrase “the power of the Recording Secretary”.
And finally I wish I could be pointed to a substantive pattern of behavior that would reflect dishonest journalism. I still hold to my idea that many people become piqued with the Times for not giving them the news that they *want* to hear so as to bolster their worldview.
I expect to be told the facts and then make my own determinations. If I demanded only one-sided "news" I'd be deluding myself. Since 'news' is mostly information someone else doesn't wish for you to know, corruption is never far away. Don't let yourself be misled simply because something is presented neatly.
Marvin Gaye said it best: "believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."
The term "the power of the Recording Secretary" is one I devised from experience. Whoever takes the meeting minutes controls the institutional memory. If the secretary decides not to record what you say in a meeting, often that's too bad for you and whatever point you wanted to make: It's been unilaterally dismissed. That's a lesson to be learned from the Mad Men days - wise bureaucrats know to NEVER piss off the secretarial staff.
“ Since 'news' is mostly information someone else doesn't wish for you to know, corruption is never far away.”
Respectfully, that is a beguilingly written phrase that takes an enormous leap of logic. There are all sorts of instances of news that people think you *should* hear and thus pass it on. Natural disasters, acts of bravery and unselfish service, technological leaps, archaeological discoveries are all examples of news that people want to get you to, not keep from you.
That is not the larger point however. Corruption is often far from news. News so often ferrets out villainy, corruption and brutality. The newsmaker and the reporter are all too often at odds with one another, rather than in bed.
I get your point. Newsmakers can often “persuade” news purveyors to ignore or sanitize something corrupt or criminal that they are involved in.
But the extrapolation you made is far too sweepingly intended for me to gloss over without comment. I hope I am as alert and well-informed as the majority of citizens, but I am disinclined to be cynical. In the larger atlas of my life, a propensity to go down rabbit holes is a luxury I cannot afford. And please don’t feel I’m accusing you of so doing. The phrase I used has become an ugly one.
In my too many years I have learned that corruption is eventually outed so often that it is near a truism to claim that people with evil on their minds either get caught or suffer karmic justice.
I’m uneasily aware that we’ve wandered well away from my defence of the NYT. I accept your disagreement without rancor or feeling that one of us is right and the other wrong. Wonderfully, the world is more complicated than that.
Thank you for your points and also for educating me on your “Recording Secretary” statement. As a teacher who has found joy in the profession for 50+ years, I could not more wholeheartedly agree with you on this point.
I'm not fully convinced. What I expect from a news venue is accurate reporting.
I see very little wherever I look. Back during the 2016 election our "paper of record" failed us. They chose to misrepresent a lot of the news, and bias was very evident. They intentionally mis-used "the power of the Recording Secretary" to decide which news should be featured more or less prominently and in some cases, opinion was presented as news.
Villains abound, and what drove this shift away from objectivity remains uncertain, however my confidence in the NYT will never be fully restored. I still read their stuff but from now on I'll use my critical eye to look for the moment a story pivots. Same as with most other news sources I catch that moment all too easily and all too frequently.
That’s an interesting idea Gary. You. have a talent for aggregation from different sources that I must lack. I read articles assiduously and give them the benefit of the doubt. Unless I read/hear something contradictory within a short while, the story holds firm in my mind. That is of course for sources that enjoy a reputation for probity, like the Times, Guardian, Globe and Mail, New Yorker, Atlantic et al.
Of course I realize that no story is ever fully accurate. Reporters inevitably carry their own perspectives with them and of course there is a limit to their sources. I assume you and I could be tasked with covering the same event and our stories might vary with some degree of significance.
I must say though, given the above, that I don’t expect malfeasance from the papers I read - a la Fox News for instance. I expect a general level of accuracy, innovative reporting styles and coherence.
Op-Ed’s are different. My assumption with them is that they will be intelligently written, supported with a thesis and indicate some recognition that there are two sides.
Maybe I am simply naive, but the sources I mention have been reliable. I don’t read in a “gotcha” vein. Perhaps I should be more rigorous.
I’m completely in the dark with your phrase “the power of the Recording Secretary”.
And finally I wish I could be pointed to a substantive pattern of behavior that would reflect dishonest journalism. I still hold to my idea that many people become piqued with the Times for not giving them the news that they *want* to hear so as to bolster their worldview.
I expect to be told the facts and then make my own determinations. If I demanded only one-sided "news" I'd be deluding myself. Since 'news' is mostly information someone else doesn't wish for you to know, corruption is never far away. Don't let yourself be misled simply because something is presented neatly.
Marvin Gaye said it best: "believe half of what you see and none of what you hear."
The term "the power of the Recording Secretary" is one I devised from experience. Whoever takes the meeting minutes controls the institutional memory. If the secretary decides not to record what you say in a meeting, often that's too bad for you and whatever point you wanted to make: It's been unilaterally dismissed. That's a lesson to be learned from the Mad Men days - wise bureaucrats know to NEVER piss off the secretarial staff.
“ Since 'news' is mostly information someone else doesn't wish for you to know, corruption is never far away.”
Respectfully, that is a beguilingly written phrase that takes an enormous leap of logic. There are all sorts of instances of news that people think you *should* hear and thus pass it on. Natural disasters, acts of bravery and unselfish service, technological leaps, archaeological discoveries are all examples of news that people want to get you to, not keep from you.
That is not the larger point however. Corruption is often far from news. News so often ferrets out villainy, corruption and brutality. The newsmaker and the reporter are all too often at odds with one another, rather than in bed.
I get your point. Newsmakers can often “persuade” news purveyors to ignore or sanitize something corrupt or criminal that they are involved in.
But the extrapolation you made is far too sweepingly intended for me to gloss over without comment. I hope I am as alert and well-informed as the majority of citizens, but I am disinclined to be cynical. In the larger atlas of my life, a propensity to go down rabbit holes is a luxury I cannot afford. And please don’t feel I’m accusing you of so doing. The phrase I used has become an ugly one.
In my too many years I have learned that corruption is eventually outed so often that it is near a truism to claim that people with evil on their minds either get caught or suffer karmic justice.
I’m uneasily aware that we’ve wandered well away from my defence of the NYT. I accept your disagreement without rancor or feeling that one of us is right and the other wrong. Wonderfully, the world is more complicated than that.
Thank you for your points and also for educating me on your “Recording Secretary” statement. As a teacher who has found joy in the profession for 50+ years, I could not more wholeheartedly agree with you on this point.