drphungky

You’re literally advocating for what is essentially approved propaganda. That you think there is an objectively correct bias terrifies me, and if you had sense, it would terrify you too.

No, there is no "correct bias". No bias is the goal. In fact, the goal is to be beyond even an appearance of bias. That's the only way you can be trustworthy. That's why the Times doesn't let their writers sign open letters. That's why they can't join lobbying orgs and don't give money to political candidates. These are just sacrifices you make if you want to be a hard news journalist. Same as having to watch what you say if you're a spokesperson or CEO, same with having to stay fit if you're a firefighter, same with a ton of jobs that have requirements that you may find unreasonable but are widely accepted because they're good for the job and the industry.

There is no such thing as objective truth, just perception and bias, and you truly believe it’s not okay to speak out against genocide?

You wanna talk about terrifying. This sentence is terrifying. No such thing as objective truth?! You've bought into the fake news, alternative facts propaganda being pushed for the last decade.

-Trump said x.

-Israel did Y.

-The president released a statement saying Z.

-A rocket exploded at a hospital in Gaza, it is unclear at the moment who fired it

-Here is an investigative report featuring video highlights, statements, and photos piecing together what likely happened in that rocket explosion

These are objective, unbiased facts. It obviously gets stickier when you start talking about what facts to report. Then you start talking about reporting on commentary on facts by people and orgs with clear biases themselves. Usually (or at least historically) journalists could cover their bases by finding both sides of an argument , and letting those players describe and clarify the facts themselves.

This is where the whole modern argument comes in over modern journalists giving too much weight to countervailing theories or crackpots in the interest of appearing unbiased. You may have heard it described as "both sides" reporting. For a long time, this was by far the best way to report facts, appear unbiased, and make sure everyone was heard and reported on. But recently there have been HUGE debates within journalism over how to report on say, climate change, when the vast vast majority of scientists say that it's happening, and it's man-made, and offer more and more conclusive studies supporting that. You can still find a few crackpots, but at what point are you choosing facts ("this crazy org said this about the new study") that themselves create a bias? Since climate change has been seen as a political issue for years, journalists have been worried about appearing unbiased, because a sniff of impropriety can drive people away from mainstream media and to the newer, very biased, lacking in ethics orgs. They started shifting away from this, and now people are both leaving unbiased news and those unbiased sources remaining are STILL getting hammered by media critics and commentators on the "both sides" narrative issues.

The point, though, is that people deeply care about and deeply debate this stuff on the margins. How do we best remain and appear unbiased? How do we best inform and explain current events? And then they debate this stuff at the margins because there are different opinions on it. But no one is saying news journalists should be able to sign petitions and open letters. It is so far outside of acceptable that I bet you could poll newsrooms at the Times, Post, Tribune and not get a single journalist who thinks going on public record about current events should be A-ok.

I hope the history books of the future describe the atrocities of the present, because clearly we can’t rely on the news.

If you're not aware of these very basic ethical and functional debates in journalism, that are covered and discussed ad nauseum in papers of every slant and those in the middle, my guess is you're just not consuming much news. It's impossible to miss this stuff. So I can't imagine you're going to pick up history books if you're missing this stuff as it's happening.

Thank you! It's crazy to me that people can't understand appearance of bias and why a paper would want to avoid it. Do people not work in industries with professional ethics? There are whole courses taught in this stuff when getting a degree in journalism, it's debated in newsrooms and by editors, even in op-eds writing commentary about the news. Did people just fall asleep during the Trump years as people were figuring out how to handle that?

You know what terrifies me? Someone saying, unironically, "there is no such thing as objective truth, just perception and bias." Russian disinfo and the Trump campaign appear to have won - we live in a post truth society where not only do facts not matter - they don't exist. Why bother reporting only on them?

You literally can police people's bias if they want to be a good journalist. That's why the NYT has a clear policy on this stuff, that she violated twice! Some people can't control their biases or don't want to, and that's fine. They don't get to be journalists at organizations that have to maintain strict impartiality.

Also, if you think the newsroom doesn't have deeply debated guidelines and rules on how and when you use the label terrorist vs freedom fighter, or how to avoid using either term, you're kidding yourself. This is why editors exist.

She didn't "write about facts", she signed an open letter! You shouldn't be signing almost any open letter as a journalist. It's one of the sacrifices you make to maintain an appearance of impartiality. The point is being beyond reproach.

It's wild that we live in such polarized times that every single comment in this thread is talking about how this is wrong because of some variant of "she's being fired for calling it like it is."

That's not what happened. She was fired (forced to resign, same difference) because she went on record with a political viewpoint and made value judgements. YOU DONT GET TO DO THAT AS A JOURNALIST. It doesn't matter if she's right (she is, in my opinion, before someone accused me of supporting apartheid and misses the point). What matters is she has taken away any appearance of being unbiased, both for her and by association for the paper. It's crazy damaging and the Times should have fired her instead of letting her resign. This is like journalistic ethics 101. My parents were both journalists and wouldn't even talk to me about who they voted for - and they weren't even in hard news.

I know these days there are so many biased news agencies and lots of opinions masquerading as news, but for hard news agencies this kind of thing does not, and should not fly. The woman was dumb and I hope she was ready for a career writing op-eds and being a partisan talking head, because she'll never write hard news at a reputable source again.

Jim Beam does make a ton of other brands as the biggest distillery, but Maker's Mark has their own distillery. They are owned by Beam Suntory though, but they still have their own distillery, aging warehouses, etc. that you can tour. You even get to dip your own bottle into the red wax - I still have mine!

Crazy that no one has recommended Costco's in-house Bourbon. It's very hard to get unless you know when it's in stock, because it sells out in like a week, but at some places (DC for example) you don't even need a membership to buy liquor. It's a REALLY good Bourbon for the price. It's a little stronger and sweeter than many bourbons in my estimation, without much bite.

My buddy is a huge Bourbon snob, we did the trail for his bachelor party, and he had a few bourbon bars set up at his wedding. It was one of the five he chose to have at his wedding, and the decision was not made on cost. He's the one that introduced me to it, and it's basically all I buy now, unless I'm getting something cheap for bourbon and gingers or some other mixed drink.

That's a clever answer!

...or maybe a smart answer. Depends if you've seen the question before.

I know you're kidding but fun fact, we might eventually cure tinnitus!

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201015173126.htm#:~:text=Summary%3A,as%20'ringing%20in%20the%20ears.

I think a lot of predictions are talking about middle management and front line knowledge workers are running into the truth that LLMs are only as good as the input data, and often give absolute trash output. The revolution might not be exactly as predicted. ML models will still probably replace some paralegals here and maybe a radiologist there, but technological predictions rarely work exactly as predicted.

On the other hand, we are really good at replacing "unskilled" labor with robots when it gets too expensive, and have been doing it for 80 years. Manufacturing plants aren't the only place it happens:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dXUX6dv2_Yo

In any event, no on who with a narrow skillset rests on their laurels is ever truly safe. Industry shifts, robots, software, consumer demand...it's always something. Fun to watch and think about though.

That's not Trump not understanding what things mean, that's modern Republican messaging strategy. MTG literally just called a protest Tlaib led "an insurrection" last week. They water down words until they have no meaning anymore, and explicitly accuse the other side of what they're doing to feed the "both sides" narrative, and take weight off genuine accusations from Democrats or the media. They've been doing it for a while. They've also done it with "weaponization of government" recently and a few other words and phrases I can't think of right now. This is why people talk about Republicans being hypocrites and "projecting". They do it very much on purpose.

Yup. Same energy as a father daughter dance where everyone signs "purity contracts" and then they get a promise ring to save themselves for marriage. It's about guilt and control and religious-based puritanism. People are making this seem like a weird sex thing with religious undertones when it's totally not. It's a weird religious thing with sexual undertones. Completely different!