
Five Corrections to The New York Times - kauffj
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/five-corrections-new-york-times
======
aresant
Seeing an informed rebuttle like this always reminds me of the "Gell-Mann
Amnesia Effect as illustrated by Michael Crichton:

"You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. You read
the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either
the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents
the story backward—reversing cause and effect. . . In any case, you read with
exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the
page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the
newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just
read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."

~~~
x3tm
I had to google to see what M. Gell-Mann had to do with this ... and it turns
out he has nothing to do with it. Crichton just used his name to name an
effect.

Is there a better name for this though? from behavioral sciences or
psychology?

~~~
tanickaway
Gell-Mann and Crichton are friends (acquaintances?) who have different
expertises and notice different wrong stories in the paper. The parent quote
is missing the reference to Gell-Mann, it goes "You open the newspaper to an
article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine,
show business." I think the name is pretty good as is?

------
njarboe
I have not read through the whole article yet, but it seems strange and it is
unfortunate that this Harvard published request for corrections has no links
at the start to the paper in question[1], the nytimes article[2], or David
Reich's response he sent to the nytimes[3]. Here are some links.

[1]Skoglund et al. (2016) paper "Genomic insights into the peopling of the
Southwest Pacific.", doi: 10.1038/nature19844,
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27698418](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27698418)

[2]"Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — or Falling Into Old
Traps?", [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/magazine/ancient-dna-
pale...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/magazine/ancient-dna-
paleogenomics.html)

[3]Never printed by the nytimes, but it would have been nice if he had linked
to a personal copy.

~~~
jessriedel
Mostly agree, but is this really sensible to consider this "Harvard
published"? This is just a Harvard PI putting up a letter on his own personal
website, albeit one he probably had assistance setting up.

~~~
njarboe
I did not notice that it was just his personal site. I just looked at the HN
URL. If HN had given the full address (reich.hms.harvard.edu) it's less likely
I would have made that mistake. Better stated would have been "published by a
Harvard Medical Researcher on his website". It is a pretty polished piece and
if he was hoping it gets picked up by someone (like HN), then adding links
would have been more professional and make the piece more creditable and
useful.

------
carbocation
In person, David Reich is an extremely thoughtful and kind guy. I have no
reason to doubt his version of events. Population genetics is a remarkably
subtle field, and it's not surprising that a journalist would understand it
95% correctly, with the missing 5% being devastating for their article.

~~~
dekhn
you should always be skeptical, even of nice experts. But in this case, he
backed up his arguments with fairly good data (some of this stuff is still in
open disagreement when he claims it's fact) so anybody in competent in the
field (like a fact checker) could verify his claims. But make no mistake: this
was a carefully written rebuttal by a master of the scientific arts, designed
to maximize impact and make the Times look like they were unfair to him.

~~~
jessriedel
> by a master of the scientific arts, designed to maximize impact and make the
> Times look like they were unfair to him.

As opposed to the journalists who wrote the initial article, who are not
masters of their own profession and do not have incentives besides impartially
reporting the truth?

Is anyone under the impression that when someone believes they have been
falsely represented by a major news outlet and issue a rebuttal that they are
trying to maximize impact and make it look like -- i.e., show -- that the
outlet was unfair to them?

~~~
briandear
>... do not have incentives besides impartially reporting the truth?

That’s a very big assumption and a rather naïve view of modern journalism.
Impartially reporting the truth is what we like to think journalists do, but
it isn’t safe to suggest that’s what they actually do.

~~~
zaroth
The negative qualifiers in that sentence mean exactly the opposite, due to the
“As opposed to” prelude, which is meant to show exasperation.

I think a sarcasm is not the right word to describe this. What is it called?
Not quite irony either...

~~~
idrios
Facetious is the word you're looking for. He made the comment in jest, not to
be taken seriously

------
Svip
Does the US not have a Press Complaint Authority? In Denmark, we have
Pressenævnet[0] which handles complaints against media outlets.

If an article is found to be at fault, the publishing outlet will be required
to publish a retraction/correction/apology, depending on the offence. During
the review, the outlet can make their case against the complaint.

Does the US not have something similar? Because these complaints sound like
the perfect fit for something like this.

[0] [https://www.pressenaevnet.dk/](https://www.pressenaevnet.dk/)

~~~
davidp
I certainly hope we don't.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and the press, including the
freedom to make mistakes and even outright lie. There is no godlike authority
that can tell truth from fiction without fail, and having government censors
telling people what they can say (especially w.r.t. political speech) would
invert the relationship between the people and their government, making
government the master instead of the servant.

Instead, we rely on an educated readership to identify bias and mistakes and
call them out, as has been done here. People get the journalism they deserve.
To the extent we're failing to teach our children critical thinking skills,
we're putting our democracy at risk.

The NY Times and other resources currently considered "credible" have earned
that credibility from the people not through government permission but by
generally providing a useful service to its consumers, despite all the
mistakes they make and biases they present.

The NY Times in particular has unfortunately been burning through that hard-
earned credibility capital at an alarming rate, even long before the current
last few years, with the result that there are large portions of the country
that no longer trust it like they did, with good reason. More recently they
have taken the bait proffered by Trump and his ilk and lowered themselves to
his level, spinning most articles I've seen with more political or
oppositional bias than in the past.

I can only hope this is a cyclical phenomenon, where the citizenry/readership
becomes ignorant of the related history and its challenges, simply because
we've lived through a period where the battles were won and we could take such
things for granted. Just like our predecessors, this generation is going to
painfully relearn that everything printed (or typed) should be taken with a
grain of salt and cross-checked against multiple sources.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
>The NY Times and other resources currently considered "credible"

Yea, but...

>The NY Times in particular has unfortunately been burning through that hard-
earned credibility capital at an alarming rate

Ah, never mind you got it.

>More recently they have taken the bait proffered by Trump

How this isn't being observed by more people is stunning. 100% of the time,
NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo are running what they think is an effective awareness
and information campaign - and is in reality going to cause scandal fatigue
and hurt their credibility. Everyone complains about his Twitter... stop
airing every single one of his tweets. In another two years, the country won't
be on fire, and statistically Trump has a good chance at re-election.

All the media pearl clutching, faux-rage, and surface depth "activism" aren't
helping... well, it's not helping them anyhow.

~~~
vosper
> 100% of the time, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WaPo are running what they think is an
> effective awareness and information campaign - and is in reality going to
> cause scandal fatigue and hurt their credibility. Everyone complains about
> his Twitter... stop airing every single one of his tweets.

But right now it's good for those sweet clicks. They have an audience who
loves to get worked up about Trump, just as there's an audience that loves to
get worked up about the kind of people who get worked up about Trump. They
have their own content, too.

~~~
jrochkind1
You will likely be interested in this recent New Yorker article which
considers this topic.

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/does-
journalis...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/does-journalism-
have-a-future)

And accompanying interview with Jill Abramson.

[https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-
interview/how-...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-
interview/how-journalism-survives-an-interview-with-jill-abramson)

But, basically... yes, what you said. And newspapers mostly lack any credible
business plan ideas that don't rely on this.

There is currently no real demonstrated business model to sustainably pay for
good journalism. Some are hoping they can at least fund good journalism with
clickbait and sponsored content... ugh.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
I agree with both of you, and pose this question... do you think they have
more desire to see Trump not win again because of their integrity - or want
Trump to win because it's extremely good for business?

~~~
jrochkind1
Oh, I'm pretty sure political topics will continue being clickbait for quite
some time whether Trump wins or not.

I think most of those who work at the NYT would like Trump not to be
president, and most of those who work at Fox News would like him to be
president.

_Covering_ Trump is good for business for both of them though. And if Trump is
out, there will be some other topics that are either way too.

------
bergoid
Previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18960718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18960718)

~~~
skosuri
To be clear, the link you posted is a discussion on the previous letter sent
to a more general audience.

------
he0001
I don’t understand that people are still surprised that articles, particularly
about complex issues, mess things up or gets facts wrong. I think a journalist
context switches a lot (even in the same field) and it’s hard to get
everything right. I don’t read news as facts, more like indications that
something have happened and if it’s sounds interesting I do some reasearch
about it or check reports or follow numbers on my own. I never assume that
news reporters gets the whole story. It perplexes me when people scream “fake
news” or something. “Fake news” doesn’t exist because the opposite doesn’t
either. When we talk about news, Plato got it right.

~~~
resters
It's not that mistakes happen, it's that retractions are usually hidden and do
not contain the same level of effort to educate the reader as the initial
incorrect reporting.

------
floatingatoll
This seems to be in reply to:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/magazine/ancient-dna-
pale...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/magazine/ancient-dna-
paleogenomics.html)

------
jackallis
can someonepost the link to the main article in question?

~~~
bsmitty5000
Maybe this- [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/magazine/ancient-dna-
pale...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/magazine/ancient-dna-
paleogenomics.html) ?

------
treis
Edit: I was looking at a corrected article. Ignore this post.

I don't know a whole lot about this, but I do know that if you write something
to show that you were misrepresented in an article you need to be extremely
careful to not misrepresent the article.

He says:

>The article wrongly states that in 2015 my colleagues I argued that the
population of Europe was “almost entirely” replaced by people from the Eastern
Europe Steppe

When the article says:

>Almost entirely replaced existing commmunities [snip] in Central and Northern
Europe.

~~~
b1gnasty
" Correction: Jan. 25, 2019 An earlier version of this article misstated the
number of peer reviewers who evaluated the 2016 Nature paper “Genomic Insights
Into the Peopling of the Southwest Pacific” before publication. It was four,
not three; a fourth reviewer was added to evaluate the paper after the
original submission was revised. The article also misstated the geographical
area where migrants from the steppes of eastern Ukraine and southern Russia
significantly replaced existing communities of hunter-gatherers and early
farmers, as reported in an academic paper on the migration. It was Central and
Northern Europe, not the entire continent. "

~~~
treis
Whoops! Fooled by the edit

------
dajohnson89
The article's title says "New York Times", but the article itself says "New
York Times Magazine". They're completely different publications...

~~~
mattynice
I think completely different publications is a bit exaggerated. According to
wiki:

"The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the
Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer
than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable
contributors."

I also was curious as to how supplement was defined within the context of
publishing and again according to wiki:

"A supplement is a publication that has a role secondary to that of another
preceding or concurrent publication. A follow-on publication complements its
predecessor, either by bringing it up to date (e.g. the Index Catalogue), or
by otherwise enhancing the predecessor's coverage of a particular topic or
subject matter, as in the Tosefta."

In my opinion the difference is insignificant.

~~~
SiempreViernes
They don't seem to share staff though, at least not on the editor level,
compare: [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/admin/the-new-
york-...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/admin/the-new-york-times-
masthead.html) and
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/magazine/masthead.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/magazine/masthead.html)

There's also the obvious difference that one is a newspaper and the other is a
magazine; I think it's just a bit unclear what is being meant when they
claimed they are "different publications".

