[yzzxy]

NOTE: Techraptor is a site set up by Gamergaters to talk about games and tech news without reprecussions from people who find their views exclusive of progressives, minorities, feminists, and LGBTQ folks. They call this "ethical journalism" because they claim to not receive kickbacks or have special relationships with their journalistic subjects, as they perceive their ideological enemies do.

The quality of journalism is low in my experience, notable moments include the point where writers believed "death of the author"[0] referred to authors dying out as a profession.

[0] A major concept in contemperary literature concerning authorial importance after a work is published, see Rereading Barthes and Nabokov by Zadie Smith for a good intro

[scrollaway]

What I'm seeing is a news piece citing sources I can independently verify.

This is really damning: http://newsdiffs.org/diff/934341/934454/www.nytimes.com/2015...

Did "gamergaters" (whatever that means...) set up newsdiffs too? Oh wait, googling it brings me to a git repository created in 2012, years before "gamergate" was a word on the internet.

So, I click that link, and I see exactly what the article talks about. A neutral piece on a CEO stepping down completely rewritten to push for a "look at how they're mistreating that poor female CEO" agenda. A solid article, turned into opinion mediatrash.

And you're making an ad hominem argument about the website because of who created it.

Quick sidenote (and if this gets me downvoted, have the decency to reply; blind downvotes with no discussion breed censorship)... As someone who is pro- women in tech, pro- women in general, pro- minorities, and even as an activist at times, I am finding it really fucking hard these days to be pro feminism when the agenda consists of lying to people to get into the spotlight.

I can't ever support a cause where this crap happens all the time. Where the facts aren't good enough to push the agenda.

Are there really not enough stories of opressed women that you have to find Ellen Pao, a CEO (which already almost nobody can relate to) in the middle of extremely controversial fraudulent lawsuits, that is accused of being out of touch with its own userbase? And people try to make readers relate to her?

There's so much shit to be outraged at in the world. Why fabricate?

Edit: Yep. Downvoted without discussion. Brilliant. We're really encouraging debates here...

[istvan__]

"Edit: Yep. Downvoted without discussion. Brilliant. We're really encouraging debates here..."

Common practice here nowadays. You have to be ready to take a hit in your karma if you bring up a viewpoint that is not widely accepted here. Kind of makes me sad.

Anyways back to your points, this is exactly right. Ellen Pao fired Victoria for no good reason and NYT conclusion -> she is hated because she is a female. I can't find words to describe this level of hypocrisy. I am pretty sure that there are people who disliked her due to sheer misogyny but 200.000 people signed that petition. You don't need to be extremely good with math to understand that those people cannot just all be like that.

Anyways, I agree with you that fabricating things like this article is extremely bad, btw. this is what Chomsky calls manufacturing consent, and he is damn right about it.

[reb]

>Are there really not enough stories of opressed women that you have to find Ellen Pao, a CEO (which already almost nobody can relate to) in the middle of extremely controversial fraudulent lawsuits, that is accused of being out of touch with its own userbase? And people try to make readers relate to her?

Welcome to Feminism: The Product. Reminds me of the business with Taylor Swift, defender of hardworking artists (oops, turns out she fleeces her independent contractors). Every powerful woman is a martyr for the cause of the common woman, despite every economic sign to the contrary. Meanwhile restrictive abortion laws are making a comeback, coverage of and investigations into campus rape have been roundly botched, the aggressive mainstream "feminist" narrative (at this point I'd argue feminism online is a news marketing gimmick, not a reflection of any real political ideology) stokes tensions that choke productive discussion. Women's rights are as critical as they've ever been but I get the sense all the talk I hear from self-proclaimed supporters is nothing but hot air with ads in the sidebar.

Such is the state of politics in this digital era.

[verifiedbyvisa]

Isn't that he same point the article is making? People in both GG and anti GG were both doxxing, making sock puppet accounts, closing each other's events with threats. It was reported as 'internet people hate women' the same way this was.

[yzzxy]

Well, lots of vitriolic responses here. Let me say that I don't really have a strong opinion on this article here because I don't really wish to delve into the entire bibliography, but:

1. The points I mentioned are at very least closely related to the topic of the article. They are not totally an argumentum ad hominem, the moment TechRaptor began to commentate on journalistic integrity they opened themselves to comparison of their own journalistic integrity. This does not mean they are wrong about the NYT, it just means there is a possibility of hypocrisy and irony in their accusations.

2. I do not believe this history taints their reporting, only that perhaps greater care should be taken with accepting their claims on similar topics.

3. Please note that the first paragraph of my response carries no value judgement on Techraptor (just a quick, largely neutral history for context), and the second paragraph only includes what I mark as my own personal opinion. I mentioned the "death of author" incident only to note that TechRaptor writers seem to be amateurs (not a sin in any way) who are perhaps not as well antiquated with all industry practices in journalism as NYT writers may be. This does not mean they are wrong.

4. I have also been frustrated when news outlets silently update stories with changes/corrections after those issues are pointed out by myself and others. I have not really engaged over those because the topics of discussion were largely unimportant and I did not really feel invested enough to start a large public argument with a news site or magazine. So I think there is a real issue here to be discussed and I don't wish to silence anyone.

[scrollaway]

I think came across as too aggressive in my reply, I apologise. Just yesterday when the news story broke, we saw people dropping the "gamergate" name randomly just to score some points on whatever they were arguing.

The name is extremely toxic, especially when there is a massive misunderstanding between people pushing for news stories which are less biased, written in a neutral point of view... and media spinning it as an anti-women movement. Wtf.

I'm of the belief the lack of neutrality in media is severely lobotomizing certain countries. I've lived in several european countries, each with strikingly different styles of media, and none of them are as shockingly bad as the american media.

Just like Pepsi and Coke, there's a symbiotic relationship between various media outlets where "rivalry" just helps drive the views up. Instead of having a handful of neutral stations where the reader can do their own research and form their own opinion (something which most readers are not interested in doing anyway), they divide their readership in camps, willingly driving away one camp while cultivating a soundproof echo chamber for the other. And within that space they'll do whatever it takes to get as many views, clicks, purchases as possible.

CGP Grey has two distinct really well written entry-level pieces on the subject; I'd recommend anyone to take a look if they aren't familiar with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/why-tv-news-is-a-waste-of-human-...

[Globrazu]

It's funny because this isn't even true, TechRaptor as a Tech reporting site has existed since early 2013, here is a Web Archive from about a year before "GamerGate" started: http://web.archive.org/web/20131124114156/http://techraptor....

In fact it was founded by Rutledge Daugette in March 2013, over a year before "GamerGate".

What this should tell you both about said claim and the person making it I would like to leave to you.

[pessimizer]

That clears up my confusion - it was a bit shocking to me that someone who is commenting on the news could be unaware that Clinton actually did operate a private email server nearly four months after it was major news.

[ams6110]

You might want to familiarize youself with the flaws in making an ad hominem argument.

[alayne]

I find it very helpful to know if a news source has some kind of agenda. They may be more likely to use statements out of context or to suppress facts, biased towards one side of a dispute. I'm not saying that is the case here, but we are talking about the NYT vs a site I hadn't heard of until today.

[yzzxy]

This isn't ad hominem, it's directly related to the topic at hand (ethics, motivations in journalism). Ad hominem doesn't mean the mistakes of the past can't be mentioned, it means that character flaws can't.

[pkinsky]

You sound just like the kind of person that refuses to read any article published in Al Jazeera.

[TorKlingberg]

Your comment is a bit inflammatory, but thanks, it's good to know the political biases of a source.

[aw3c2]

So what? You might be a /%$&/§$ or a )()%§&!"/$ for all I know but I can still independently make up my mind about what you just wrote. Are you suggesting censorship based on people's thoughtcrimes (in your opinion)?