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Not if the print edition is considered the record. The analogy would be eventual consistency in exchange for higher availability: the tradeoff is the occasional stale read.



Not if the print edition is considered the record.

The NY Times, like all newspapers, is feeling some financial pain. However, go back about 40 or 50 years to the salad days, and there was no such thing as "the print edition". Many newspapers, including the Times, published a number of editions during the day. National papers were also published regionally, with somewhat different contents. I don't know what happens nowadays.

In times of old, the NY Times National edition was supplanted by the Late City edition. But this caused some problems, as this FAQ discusses: http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/faqs/news/nyteds.html


I just don't agree. It's not as though this isn't a solved problem. And this isn't just a stale read, it's a bait and switch.


It becomes bait and switch via a presumption that the editorial direction wrought by the changes is improper. It's not if one presumes that the additional context makes for better journalism: then the changes are improvement. This appears to be the belief The New York Times's editors.


Switching a neutral article for an opinion piece would bother me even if I agreed with the opinion.


I read this comment and was moved to summarize every graf in the piece to check whether it was an opinion piece:

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=9870891

Spoiler: I don't think "it's an opinion piece" is a colorable argument.


It's called parajournalism. "Opinion piece" has a clearly defined meaning in journalism and is an entirely different genre.

Parajournalism seems to be journalism — “the collection and dissemination of current news” — but the appearance is deceptive. It is a bastard form, having it both ways, exploiting the factual authority of journalism and the atmospheric license of fiction. Entertainment rather than information is the aim of its producers, and the hope of its consumers.[0]

Your bullet list summary reveals little but your own bias/agenda and adds little to the conversation. We have the actual diff and can read for ourselves which is sort of the point. The diff link was provided in the source article: http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015...

I hope Margaret Sullivan looks into this. Seems appropriate.

0: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1965/aug/26/parajou...


People level this charge, or charges just like it, at every news story they don't like. Nerds are going to get a rude awakening if they think they're going to cow the Times (or the WSJ editorial board, for that matter) over "bias" in their newsrooms; these publications have been at the center of the real-world culture war for decades.


Consider the neutral statements that were deleted:

“It became clear that the board and I had a different view on the ability of Reddit to grow this year,” Ms. Pao said in an interview. “Because of that, it made sense to bring someone in that shared the same view.”

Sam Altman, a member of Reddit’s board, said he personally appreciated Ms. Pao’s efforts during her two years working at the start-up. “Ellen has done a phenomenal job, especially in the last few months,” he said.

Also consider what the article left out, like the complaints of IAmA mods about the way Victoria was terminated; the requirement that all employees move to San Francisco; the ban on salary negotiations; the community manager who said he was fired for being too sick to work; the complaints from mods about poor support from the admins.

Some opinion pieces explicitly state an opinion. This one conveys an opinion by cherry-picking facts and quotes.


* Contra your argument, the piece retains Pao's claim that she left because of differences on the direction of the company.

* The Altman quote that was removed favors Pao's supporters. Removing it makes her plight less sympathetic.

* Contra your argument, the petition not only remains in the final story, but has its own graf.

* Contra your argument, the piece retains the concern about Victoria's firing.

* The relocation of Reddit's employees was a Yishan Wong initiative, as was the salary negotiation policy.

There is virtually no news story that you can't attack for "leaving out facts". You might not like this reported news story, but it is not an opinion piece.


You're right about the petition. Mea culpa; it was just moved.

What's your source re the salary negotiation policy? Numerous news stories said it was Pao's decision.

The move to SF was often brought up again in discussions over the past couple weeks. Contra the misogyny argument, there's anger at reddit that pre-dates Pao.

Regarding the Altman quote and Pao's statement that "it made sense to bring someone in that shared the same view", I can see your interpretation, though I disagree.

Regarding Victoria's firing: yes, the NYT mentioned it, but without explaining why it angered the mods so much.


Here is the entire Victoria graf:

Ms. Pao’s departure from Reddit was prompted after the online message board’s tight-knit community broke into upheaval when news broke that Victoria Taylor, a prominent and well-liked Reddit employee, had been suddenly dismissed from the company this month with no public explanation. In protest, Reddit users shut down hundreds of sections of the message board.

This graf:

* Establishes an objective cause of Pao's ouster --- the firing of Victoria Taylor --- that Pao's opponents widely agree is the reason she left.

* Calls into question the reason for Taylor's firing.

* Reports the subreddit strike, which was done precisely to get this sort of attention.

At no point does the graf downplay the firing or somehow mitigate Pao's involvement in it. Which it easily could have, because Pao didn't fire Taylor, Ohanian did.

I do not think you can win an argument that the Times tried to spin the Victoria Taylor issue out of the article.


> I do not think you can win an argument that the Times tried to spin the Victoria Taylor issue out of the article.

That's not exactly what I said, and certainly nothing I meant to imply. Allow me to try again:

The article ignored the complaints expressed by the moderators.


The article also ignores the fact that Pao didn't fire Taylor, and that the issue of how AMAs were going to be moderated was in Ohanian's portfolio, not hers.

That fact is more material to the article than the specifics of the moderator complaints about Taylor --- for instance, it speaks to the difficult situation Pao was in managing a team that included Reddit's charismatic founder and the chairman of the company, in an operational role. But it also isn't in the article.


Surely Pao must have signed off on the decision at some point?


Deliberate omission of some set of facts is just as much an editorial decision as their inclusion. Ignoring the context of Pao's history in tech is as editorial as its inclusion. The BBC's "Omar Sharif: Lawrence of Arabia star dies aged 83" is appropriate for mentioning his role in a movie more than 50 years ago. Journalism is about exposing the relevant facts and erring on the side of too much rather than witholding is reasonable. History matters.

The past is never dead. It's not even past. -- Faulkner


Deliberate omission of facts that don't fit a particular opinion is a form of advocacy for that opinion.

The NYT is entitled to their opinion, but I think it should be expressed in an editorial, not used to choose what facts to report.


You cannot call a reported news story an 'editorial' because the facts it chooses to present are somehow inconvenient to your agenda. Contra repeated claims that this piece was transformed by addition of "opinions", it seems to be composed entirely of verifiable facts.


I hardly ever use reddit, and I'll certainly agree that reddit (especially the default subs) is dominated by young males and can be, at times, misogynistic.

If I have an agenda here, it's to ask for better from professional journalists.


Would you start a news about Hillary Clinton as, "Hillary Clinton, hero to many..." even though it might be technically true?


If you replace a good article on apples with a great article on bridges, it's still a bait and switch.


Increasing the article's emphasis on gender issues does not make the revision a "bait and switch". All the substantive material from the earlier revision remains. No facts reported in the original piece have changed.


The ethics don't stop when you hit 'send to print'




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