Important issues for WWW forums

[Oren Grad]

Rob -

Thanks for the link, that's a super resource for getting oriented on this stuff.

[Frank Petronio]

You can set up the hosting server to load an error page that links back to the home page in the future - a nice, professional feature that is often overlooked.

[paulr]

"I'll share my low opinion of the NYT outside the forum but no good comes of bringing up the obvious to people predisposed not to see it"

it's funny ... i know a lot of people who consider the NY Times to be a fascist tool of the conservative media. hatred of the Times has always seemed to be a good litmus test of the degree of someone's wack-o-ness.

i'd be really curious to see what people consider evidence of bad journalism, or significant bias in the news section of the times. media critics of every political stripe have ranked it among the two or three best newspapers in the world for a long time. usually right behind the wall street journal, which couldn't be farther from the times, if you look at the editorial page.

[tim atherton]

"i'd be really curious to see what people consider evidence of bad
journalism, or significant bias in the news section of the times."

err - one of the worst cases in recent years - Judy Miller

[paulr]

yeah, Judy Miller was a major gaffe. there's a difference between screwing up and fostering a culture of bad or corrupt journalism (as is done by many of america's favorite news sources).

for what it's worth, Miller's misinformation bolstered the position of the administration--it reinforced the lies propagated by the white house and fox news and other republican agencies, so i don't see how it could be evidence of treason or even of "liberal media bias."

[Frank Petronio]

Lies? That you consider what they've said as lies while ignoring the lies made in the mainstream media says it all. If this were WW2 Roosevelt would have shut the paper down and hung all the bastards as traitors.

[paulr]

you're swinging a big club, frank ... why don't you start by telling us what truths are being misrepresented, and what media you consider to be mainstream.

and i'm curious ... where do you get YOUR news?

[Paul Butzi]

yeah, Judy Miller was a major gaffe. there's a difference between screwing up and fostering a culture of bad or corrupt journalism (as is done by many of america's favorite news sources).

Jayson Blair

[Paddy Quinn]

yeah, Judy Miller was a major gaffe. there's a difference between screwing up and fostering a culture of bad or corrupt journalism (as is done by many of america's favorite news sources).

Miller was fostered and supported at the highest levels of the paper. She wasn't exactly an abberation

[paulr]

just keep in mind that running a newpaper requires developing a certain bond of trust with the reporters. at a good newpaper, that trust is laboriously earned over a long time. that doesn't mean it can't be broken. with certain kinds of news stories, it's not possible to independently verify the facts, at least if you want to do it while the story is still news. so you extend trust.

for whatever reasons, previously good reporters sometimes snap and and violate that trust. the paper is screwed in those situations.

none of this is the same as the troubles that plague so much journalism these days ... like Rupert Murdoch using "news" as a platform purely to push a political/financial agenda.

a good paper has a firewall between its news section and its editorial section. and its management. i trust the news section of the wall st. journal, even though its editorial section tends to represent politics that i profoundly disagree with. but i find their journalistic standards to be first rate, so the opinions of the op/ed writers and the publisher make little difference to me.