NY Times Tries to Untangle Analysts and Shills

twitter writes "The Register and others are examining a New York Times effort to eliminate bias from technology reporting by not echoing paid opinions. (Other coverage here.) They target Microsoft specifically. InfoWorld has an insightful summary of the two sides of this old debate. Fake think tanks, dubious sponsored research, and Astroturf are not considered but should be. Companies using these tactics deserve to be held at arm's length, but that's hard to do when the company is also a monopoly able to make or break any 'expert.' It would be refreshing to see the New York Times discover the FSF, opensource.org, EFF, and other sources of computing expertise."

Comments

I know the Reg bias...

[NevarMore]

...just as well as I know the bias of the NYT.

One of the basics of journalism is understanding that as a journalist you can't elminate your bias. What you can do is try to minimize your bias and in cases of opinion and analysis declare your bias as well as the bias of your sources. The Reg said it best in this case, "A better policy might insist that the Times disclose the ties between an analyst and a vendor, leaving the reader to make the credibility judgement." . So if I see a Microsoft enginner quoted I'm told he is an MS engie and when I see TurdFurgeson quoted I'm told he's Linux zealot.

Thats really the best the NYT can do as a responsible organization, if you eliminate all bias you remove your writers humanity and create a lie. While removing bias your own mind will fool itself and think you've removed them when really you've magnified them. Biases are what lead to needed critiques, so long as those biases are dealt with openly and honestly we should be ok.

*Note I'm not a journalist, but the points here have been beaten into my head by several close journalist friends. The bias question was also material for an elective journalism course for me at college.* - There see. I declared my bias. I like and trust most journalists because I know some good ones. I've also pointed out that I lack formal training in the area, so I might know enough to contribute but I shouldn't be quoted as an expert source.

Re:100% in agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

The ideological bias theoretically shouldn't be a problem for the NYT since they deal with it on a much grander scale each day in politics. Not that I'm saying they are particularly successful, but at least they have an idea what to look for.

As far as the technical aspects go, I think the big problem that any media organization has is that they have journalists writing about subjects they don't have a clue about--so they take the advice of experts like Microsoft and echo them in their articles. This is sort of a tricky problem to solve because the obvious solution of hiring technically educated persons probably isn't going to work (because they will be significantly more expensive than ordinary journalists). It is sort of a gamble. They can hire expensive people who have a strong education in science and technology and print much more thorough and unbiased articles or they can go cheap and hope the lack of quality doesn't hurt their sales.

Re:The FSF, not biased ?

[LaughingCoder]

Young people have smelt the bullshit from miles away and refuse to read it because they've been exposed to so much BS in their lifetimes and have been hurt by it so many times they have a motivation to get away from it.

Nice try, but I think you are giving young people too much credit. While I agree with you that newspaper readership is much less prevalent in the younger generation, I think the reasons are a little less flattering to the younger set. I think mostly being accustomed to reading things on the screen versus in print is a big part of it. My proof is that younger people also read fewer books - have they been "hurt by" books also? I also think younger people, having grown up with the internet, are used to a more interactive environment where they can discuss the article, ala on-line news sites and forums. Lastly, and this is the most scary reason, the internet generation is much more accustomed to reading articles that align with their own beliefs. This is the one thing about the internet that really worries me ... the ability to customize your "news" in such a way that you only read things with which you agree. This tends to polarize people (seen much of that?) and cause huge rifts between the camps, because over time you forget you are only reading half of the story.