As the New York Times fires more writers today, we’ve got another embarrassing story about sloppy newspaper reporting. That New York magazine article about the $72 million high school investor? A hoax.
The magazine has since edited the piece heavily and added the word “rumor” to the article. Yeah, too late, New York magazine. But I still like your fashion articles.
Apt. 11d 
That article had red flags from the beginning. It’s sad, because the ethics of journalism, the idea that a journalist would follow certain standards was one aspect of the value added by traditional journalism. But, if that’s disappearing, it’s hard to see how New York magazine is different from a random tweeter (or Rolling Stone).
Scientific American revamped it’s blogger network recently; they are being mealy mouthed about the reasons, but I do think one was where they wanted to stand on fact checking/journalism standards for their blogs. I think that Paul Krugman’s blog (and not just his column) at the New York Times has fact checking. But, am I right? Scientific American wrote that they have different relationships with different blogs that appear on their network. Some are “in house” (presumably, like Krugman), while others are merely hosted. They apply different standards to those different blogs. But, do readers understand that difference?
Looks like substantial fact checking is now being crowd sourced (though in the Rolling Stone article, some was done by the Wash Post). Ultimately, that might undermine the media outlets that want to pay for fact checking, meaning that we want have any facts checked (except by crowd sourcing). I didn’t entirely predict that trajectory for the direct reader/content producer connection that came with the technology of the internet, but in retrospect, I can see that editing/fact checking/quality checking/curation are rapidly disappearing.
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I think the old line, ‘some stories are true. and some stories should be true’ is useful here – and in the Duke Lacrosse case, and the UVa case, and the Trayvon/Zimmerman, and the Ferguson events. The America is Rotten idea can be utterly irresistable to a reporter who thinks s/he has got something telling. Periodicals should be particularly careful of stories which seem to conform neatly to the going-in predispositions of their writers.
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I think Zimmerman and Ferguson are pretty clear, very much demonstrated evidence that America has some serious problems.
For example, in Ferguson, journalists very clearly looked more into the comically fraudulent pro-police witnesses. And on the UVA case, the bloggers haven’t been demonstrating very much care in their reporting either.
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That blogger link is pretty dreadful. It does really make me worry about the “underreporting age.” We can’t go back, but it makes me even ore committed to figuring out ways to contribute to a model of professional journalism where I can find it.
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Here is Steve Sailer in Taki’s magazine gleefully reporting his role in unravelling the UVa story. He gives Erdely props for literary quality, though.
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Here is Steve Sailer in Taki’s magazine
Somehow I’m not interested in following any links to a white supremacist writing in an explicitly racist magazine, but maybe next time I’ll follow some link.
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Did someone forget to tell the twentysomethings that “Too good to check” is meant as rueful comment on rumors and not as how-to? And when did I become an old salt of journalism? Gah.
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If that smoking gun story about Juror #40 turns out to be true, I’ll officially lose my mind.
The NY Magazine and UVa articles fiasco is what happens when you pay 20-somethings dirt wages for reporting. We’re witnessing the total collapse of journalism right now. Part of me thinks that we’re going to see a resurgence in blogging, as people lose trust in MSM. The other side of me thinks that there are too many wingnuts still blogging.
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Witness #40. Juror #40 was probably Wilson’s mom.
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Oh that’s not fair. And, it underestimates the role that bias/racism plays in these police/constituent interactions. The racist, truly racist, cops are a problem, but the systemic problem is the bias we all share against black men like Brown. I don’t know if Wilson is racist, but I fear the bias as much as the racism. There’s no reason to cast aspersions on Wilson’s mom (who probably does not have a facebook page with racist diatribes).
(Feel a need to defend mothers everywhere from “your mama” comments).
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I was joking about the prosecutor’s obvious attempt to throw the case, not about what Wilson’s mom thinks.
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Matt, here’s a QOTD Terry Teachout posted, and which made me think of you: “You touch on a disheartening truth. People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.” — James Branch Cabell, The Cream of the Jest
If you don’t look at things which are not cozy for you, you will never learn new stuff. Just saying.
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Because the guy saying the currently social stratification is based on a scientifically-supported natural order is the one you go to to hear uncomfortable truths.
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I read lots of stuff that’s not “cozy” for me. But you know what? I don’t need to read white supremicists stuff, or other racist things like that sort that fill up taki’s mag. I don’t bother to read creationist literature either. I mean, do you find yourself wondering, “well, maybe black people really are inherently inferior, and I’m just a liberal dupe to not think so?” If so, than reading Sailor and Taki’s mag is perhaps a good thing. If you don’t think that’s a premiss you need to worry about, then you can avoid it. I’m happy to leave it up to you which is which. (Plus, as MH notes, Sailor is hardly speaking truth to power. He’s saying that blacks have lower standing because they are inherently inferior. There’s no point in trying to shine that up. If you think that’s a worth-while line of argument, why not just come flat out and run with it?)
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