Sentences to ponder

by  Tyler Cowen in

She also said Ms. Gardner had ranked reporters in job interviews according to how negative they were regarding tech companies, viewing that as a favorable trait, and had urged Ms. Angwin to run headlines on future stories like ‘Facebook is a dumpster fire.’ Ms. Angwin said her objections had led Ms. Gardner to seek her removal as editor in chief.

Here is the source (NYT), via Tom.

Comments

clockwork_prior

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So, change one word, and does anyone think the reflection does not occur in equal proportion? - 'ranked reporters in job interviews according to how positive they were regarding tech companies, viewing that as a favorable trait.'

Or to put it differently, this seems to pretty muc cover all cases - 'ranked reporters in job interviews according to how negative/positive they were regarding X, viewing that as a favorable trait.'

Or does anyone think that Forbes or the WSJ is interested in hiring Marxists? And that it would even be worth mentioning, considering its utter banality over decades of it being practiced? Not to mention that Forbes or the WSJ is fully entitled to employ whoever they wish, of course.

Strange how some public choice economists seem to be so limited in applying their analytic tools to the full range of institutions and beliefs.

Anon7

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If the NYT's motto were "all the news that fit our biases to print", then it wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Instead, of course, you make an utterly banal point as a pretext for your daily two minutes of hate.

clockwork_prior

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You honestly believe what the NYT says about itself is the truth?

Why?

But this is the MR comments section, where any belief, such as thinking the NYT is anything but a self-interested organization whose concern for the truth is considerably lower than its concern for things it considers important, can be held, apparently sincerely.

But who really cares about the NYT lying when it comes to invading another country, right?

Brian Donohue

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"Or does anyone think that Forbes or the WSJ is interested in hiring Marxists? And that it would even be worth mentioning, considering its utter banality over decades of it being practiced?"

Utter banality? Keep up the campaign comrade.

clockwork_prior

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Campaign for what? Employers make judgments concerning whom they hire, which is an utterly banal observation.

Anonymous

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Are you being deliberately obtuse or just trying to confuse people? The obvious issue is a publication that was given millions of dollars to be a tech watchdog instead, and against the desire of its funders, becoming a politicized attack dog, which will render it useless.

If someone wrote an article about the WSJ firing people because they failed an ideological litmus test, I'm sure you would be shitting all over the comments section about how it's perfectly legal, nothing to see here

clockwork_prior

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'If someone wrote an article about the WSJ firing people because they failed an ideological litmus test, I'm sure you would be shitting all over the comments section about how it's perfectly legal, nothing to see here'

Considering how I have consistently pointed that an employer (certainly in at will employment state) has the right to fire an employee for absolutely no reason at all, you would be right.

No one has a legal right to be employed, and employers are free to decide who to hire - another utterly banal observation, but this is the MR comments section.

Anonymous

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I love your campaign to downplay anything that's not outright illegal. "They're legally allowed to do it so don't bring it up!"

Axa

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Know your customer.

Imagine what happens to any sports editor that dares to publish "adult men in shorts running behind a ball".

Axa

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Also, never take ideas at face value.

When I was a college freshman "critical reading" was still a buzzword. Assume all texts are imperfect or incomplete, assess the validity of claims and think about possible counterfactuals. Did something changed in the last 20 years? =)

There's even an old an popular phrase for this: read between the lines. Successful reading is 50% the job of the writer and 50% the job of the reader. Is the NYT editor biased? I'm sure, my job as reader is to discover that bias and deal with it because all humans are biased.

Epe

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Tech is over-covered. We need more watchdogs on education, healthcare, housing, and telecom. There's no reason why Americans should pay more than other countries for these basic services.

Anonymous

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There are a lot of reasons

rayward

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Some folks can't handle the truth, believing as they do in the sanctity of big business and the CEOs who run big business. Facebook is a dumpster fire: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/technology/facebook-regulation-ftc-fine.html

a clock worn orange

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The watch-dogs bark! Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change. Es-tu en vie ou pas? Il n'y a rien dans ta tête.

dearieme

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Once again Steve the Noticer has spotted the trend - women bellyaching about office politics.

He must be by far the best journalist writing today, at least in English. And yet people hardly ever cite him. How odd.

A fish called Wanda

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I’ve noticed that you’re a cuck!

dearieme

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It doesn’t take much skill to notice that

peri

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More than a decade ago, one of our county offices degenerated, to the point that it became a news story, into civil war between two women in management roles: one Hispanic, one black. They didn't speak for years, despite being in the same room, to the point of sending their underlings back and forth with handwritten notes, like warring schoolchildren might do. Each filed multiple workplace grievances against the other (and only think, there was nothing sexual about any of it!) which wended their way through the process for years: eventually one was let go, to restore peace. The let-go one, whom I believe had longer service, then sued the county and received a substantial settlement. There were other legal maneuverings. Taxpayers in the private sector were baffled and angry (they'd be less so now, perhaps). It created quite a furor at the county commissioners' court.

The absolute best part of the story was when a naive white lady commissioner tried to resolve the women's differences by giving them each a book her book club had enjoyed, "Three Women of Herat." I think this was meant to focus them on whatever they shared, as women, with her, and with the women of Afghanistan. The combatants did briefly unite in finding her well-meant gift deeply, WTF-offensive.

There's been nothing as fun since, though the city government's single diversity and equity department having, noisily, to split into two different offices - with new names - came close.

This story is a little more worrying, however. I was not best-pleased to see Wikimedia and Craigslist referenced therein, as I consider those to be the two most useful, best-run sites on the internet.

A Caning for Mercatus Employees

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You're from Texas, aren't you?

I'm told by tricorn hats that states are 'laboratories of democracy'. So, how come in the reddest state in the union, disciplinary matters in the civil service are as Jarndyce v. Jarndyce as they might be in New York?

Beto

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Texas isn't even close to the "reddest state". It's almost purple.

Think OK, ID, MS, SC, etc

peri

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I don't know who the tricorn hats are, but you heard wrong. We're not a "laboratory for democracy," we're a "miracle."

peri

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Re Sailer: unappreciated, also, is the degree to which he's taken over Joan Didion's old gig surveying California. I always enjoy those posts. Plus he's more interested in the environment than she was. The continued obsession with Michelle Obama, I don't get.

Not exactly

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Doesn't take a lot of insight to 'notice' that as more women move up into positions of corporate power, they will have more involvement in and complaining about office politics. Just like men. Almost as if they are human beings at the office.

Jack

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Just imagine the consequences if this sort of bias leaked into their political reporting.

(Sarcasm)

anonymous

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I had not heard of Lashon Hara until this week and the thread below. It seems to me that all the hay being made about personalities and conflicts at The Markup might be the evil tongue, "negative things about someone, particularly their misdeeds, which are completely true, but you're not trying to accomplish anything useful by saying it."

https://twitter.com/DataPup_/status/1121104622641451009?s=19

(To the readers who might think it is 'evil tongue' to criticize our political leaders, see the 7th tweet in the thread.)

Anonymous

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Obviously not. The goal is to expose the corruption of The Markup and to hopefully restore its original purpose

Fazal Majid

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I don't know what Ms. Gardner's motivations are, but it would certainly be a good thing to get quality skeptical coverage of tech.

Most of what's on offer is sour grapes from NY journalism grads who are upset that their expensive degrees are now worthless because the Internet turned the market price for me-too "reporting" to zero.

Intelligent coverage of important topics like, say, Lina Khan's analysis of antitrust issues around Amazon, or the changing economics around IP transit are few and far between.

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