Hm, I don't know if I'd draw the cause/effect so directly.
To me, these are two separate problems: 1) NYT doxxes sources, 2) NYT serves advertisers rather than readers. There might be some relation between these two problems but I don't personally have enough information to conclude that.
I didn't make that clear in my previous post, my apologies. No implication was intended.
I have a hard time seeing how the statistic that the Times receives twice as much money from readers as from advertisers is evidence that the NYT "serves advertisers rather than readers". I think that probably puts them in the top 10% of media outlets in terms of how financially independent of advertising they are.
I take the point about subscribers being hard to count to mean that even though most of the money comes from subscribers, each individual subscriber doesn't have much leverage or bandwidth to communicate their desires to NYT. On the flip side, each individual advertiser commands some sizeable chunk of NYT's revenue as leverage.
The NYTs is also known to hassle subscribers who want to unsubscribe. The only reason a company would do that is because they know some people will give up, effectively disenfranchising them.
Anecdotally, it took ten minutes to unsusbscribe this morning (going through an online chat service rather than calling them), which is much longer than it should take, but worth it. It may be worse now due to this incident.
I think it's beyond the pale that they require you to chat with a sales representative to cancel a subscription. To reiterate, the only reason a company would do this is because they know it will suppress the number of people successfully unsubscribing. The NYTs is using the same sort of strategy commercial gyms are infamous for, albeit in a less extreme form.
Contrast it with Netflix's model of unsubscription, which you can do at any time with a single click. They've even gone as far as automatically cancelling inactive accounts. Netflix is obviously a company with confidence in their own product, so they don't resort to any dark patterns in their unsubscription process like the NYTs does.
I’ve developed a habit of canceling things via email. It tends to get a fast response. Any run around is dealt with easily by keeping responses short. And if they charge my credit card again I’ve got a record of exactly when I contacted them so I can pretty easily issue a chargeback. It can also be helpful to make it clear that if they ever want my business in the future they ought to be showing me good service now by canceling without wasting my time.
Netflix is obsessed with data. Easy cancellation lets them define a much more accurate loss function for the AI they eventually want to run their whole business for them.
Strongly agree. My original plan on unsubscribing was to come back if they blinked on SlateStarCodex (everyone makes mistakes), but after being made to jump through these extra hoops, I'm through with this company.
I got through their virtual agent and reached a human agent who decided to transfer me once she got to know I'm asking for cancellation. I got this response "Please wait one moment while I transfer you to an account specialist." Now I'm just waiting after another automated response "Sorry our wait times are longer than expected. Thank you for your patience." This really sucks.
I think any amount of money from advertisers is toxic.
There's a fundamental disconnect between the mission of a news organization and getting paid to lie (which is, fundamentally, what advertising is). You cannot accept ad dollars and be an effective purveyor of truth.
> getting paid to lie (which is, fundamentally, what advertising is).
Not fundamentally. A lot of advertising may be well be outright lying, or close enough as makes no difference.
But... I used to go by a shop named "Cards Galore", it had its name in reasonably sized letters hanging over the sidewalk, and then when I wanted to buy a card I knew where I could get one. Nothing lying about that. I think there's a lot of advertising which is like that.
Something weaker might be true, like "large-scale advertising will inevitably lead to large-scale lying". But "advertising is fundamentally lying" is not true.
While there's a good amount of advertising that's truthful, I think it's safe to label all (or at least nearly all) advertising as emotional manipulation, and on those grounds I try to avoid advertising.
Companies toying with my psychology in order to get me to buy something from them... well, that doesn't sit well with me.
I don't really consider labeling a business to be advertising, though. That's like if I go to Wikipedia and see the Wikipedia logo--it's just showing me where I am.
Internet advertising is pretty much all lying. Even when what an ad says is factual, they're not telling you the whole truth, they're telling you a partial truth that leaves out pieces of information which they know would be relevant to you--that's a lie because their intent is to deceive you.
And by the way, I do get it: in a lot of businesses you have to advertise because your competitors are advertising. Advertising is a blight on society that infects everyone: opting out of advertising isn't a viable option without major sacrifice. I'd like to see a future where we all agree to stop advertising and rely on consumer-reports-style reviewers to obtain unbiased product information.
SlateStarCodex itself used to have advertisers on it, and the adverts seemed pretty much fine - just banners and descriptions from a bunch of sponsors, which were pretty relevant to the blog and, I guess, the people likely to visit it. Advertisement doesn't have to lie, it can just provide useful information you haven't seen yet. Although it generally does.
Advertising is like a stopped clock: even when they present some part of the truth, it's not information, because you don't know if it's true or not. You have to obtain information via other means.
And even when they make statements of fact, it's still lying because they leave things out with the intent to deceive.
> Advertisement doesn't have to lie, it can just provide useful information you haven't seen yet. Although it generally does.
That's the crux, though. It technically doesn't have to be like this, but it almost always is - so "advertising is a bunch of consumer-hostile lies" is a more accurate generalization than "advertising informs people".
not to defend the NYTimes here, they're definitely in the wrong. but doxxing a source for an article and doxxing the subject of an article are very different things. The subject of this article is not a "source".
I think it's equally plausible that the NYT believes that doxxing sources does serve their readers. Perhaps a significant portion of the NYT's paying subscribers are against anonymity in sources? Who knows.
Not saying this is a good thing, but I think assuming that this "policy" is there to get advertising dollars is weird. Why would advertisers care?
> The implication being that the NYT wants to use real names to drive clicks and appease advertisers?
This shows a lack of how journalism works. Using real names isn't to "drive
clicks" and "appease advertisers." It's to add credibility to a story.
Think about it: Does a furniture business advertising in the local paper care
whether the victim of a shooting is named in a piece? Sure, the owner might know
the victim, but that doesn't mean the business will determine its expenditures
based on names.
> Using real names isn't to "drive clicks" and "appease advertisers." It's to add credibility to a story.
If the NYT actually thinks they need to use the real name of the author of Slate Star Codex to add credibility to a story about the blog, they're delusional.
I think it's much more likely that they simply don't care about the valid personal concerns of people they write about.
Why did the journalist search out the real name which is clearly difficult and then not talk to his interviewee about his name being released; because he knew it was immoral.
It's actually not. People in general like "good stories" and will read and share them more. Adding "credibility" will drive the perception as a "good" story and therefore to some degree clicks as well.
Which is possible through the use of other sources. But it depends on the situation. A pseudonym is appropriate for victims of sex crimes and exploitation.
Anonymity and/or pseudonym are appropriate in certain situations. In this situation, you have a source you know which is credible (you know their name), and they ask you not to publish their name. In such a case, it is standard journalist ethics in The Netherlands to not disclose the name. Sex crimes and exploitation are two (good) examples of such, but there are other examples as well. Consider for example a whistle blower, a (former) member of a cult, or -to put it generally- someone who can, realistically, be threatened when their real name is released. Such is the very case here. I am in awe that The New York Times does not adhere to the very same principles as the Dutch media do, although I am aware that the vow has been broken here as well (such as in the case of Rob Oudkerk and Parool's Heleen van Royen).
there's nothing stopping the NYT from being more ethical than US law requires them to be. and they regularly argue that current US law isn't sufficiently ethical (though perhaps not on this issue).
This is what bothers me most about the story. If someone is "internet famous" for blogging under a particular name, but not famous at all in their private life under their real name, their blog handle is newsworthy and their real name is not. It would be like reporting on an actor or musician and insisting on using their birth name throughout the story, with one reference to their stage name at the beginning of the piece.
I doubt the NYT has a lot of pieces on "Declan MacManus" in their archives -- if they can just use "Elvis Costello", they could certainly stick to calling the SSC guy by the name he uses online.
I think the person you are responding to was trying to figure out what kerkeslager's point was, rather than stating his own conclusion. I am a bit confused myself as to what the connection is between name-publishing policies and sources of funding.
The idea behind a real name policy is that you open yourself up for scrutiny and criticism. Since you can be held accountable for what you say you have an incentive to say the truth or at least avoid making mistakes. The reality is that on the internet thousands of people will criticize you for any arbitrary reason even if that reason is actually a fabricated lie or just a personal bias.
If you value your privacy, don't speak to reporters and take every protection to protect your identity. This thinking goes from the basement dweller to the billionaire.
However, if your information is revealed, don't be shocked when someone approaches you with that information because you didn't cover your tracks.
Correct. Judith Miller is an example. However, her information turned out to be inaccurate. But she wasn't willing to oust her source.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, famously refused to reveal their FBI source, Deep Throat, for decades. Of course, they didn't go to jail.
It’s multi-faceted. In some cases NYT (or any news org of any prevailing political inclination) might want to expose real names to exercise control or rally people to cancel someone. Other times it might be more mundane, just wanting a better angle for the story or more solid corroborative details.
In the case of SSC I really worry that NYT would be trying to exercise control. They probably like many things written on the blog, but also hate other things like diving into statistics of gender based pay discrimination or statistics of racial motivation in police violence.
These are topics which the modern left (which I’m a million percent a part of) is increasingly pushing out of scope of the Overton window and treating them like they are not allowed to be subject to statistical evidence or neutral discussion.
There is only One Right Thing To Believe about police violence (that is targets blacks and minorities, even if this is simply not supported by data). There is only One Right Thing To Believe about gender-based pay discrimination (the popular notion of “women make 70 cents on the dollar” which is not close to the real effect size, and requires a ton of uncomfortable nuance to discuss properly because of confounding effects of women staying at home more often and choosing to stay home after maternity leave).
I think they want SSC to write about things that comply with their moral narrative, and see doxxing as a way to turn the screws and essentially promote a vague threat that if he writes something controversial about IQ or sexism or income inequality or whatever, and it doesn’t stick to liberal talking points, they can do a damaging hit piece.
Wait, did you just claim that the NYT is part of "the modern left"?
If so, that's the funniest thing I've read in the last few years. The NYT is the home of bothsidesism. It's certainly not "the modern left".
And as far as the NYT writing a hit piece to shut up a semi-popular blog, I'd suggest a quick reality check how much influence either has on public discourse. The idea the NYT would need to shut up SSC is just... pretty far out there.
If NYT has any angle to do a story on the blog, it’s very likely to be along the lines of “while this guy got some interesting things correct, look at these other horrible examples of sexism (eg consider actual data when forming opinions about gender pay gaps) and racism (eg consider actual data when forming opinions about racial motives in police violence).”
Your comment seems especially silly given that the NYT did, in fact, shut down this blog by threatening doxxing. So, by definition, the idea is not “far out there” or even remotely questionable.
The "modern left" is people like AOC. The NYT really isn't representative of that.
Is it more left than Fox? Sure. But even in the graph you cite[1], it's maybe 5% to the left. Calling it part of "the modern left" is at best ambitious. Thinking it's left enough that it would be on a crusade to silence SSC is... creative interpretation of the reality.
Is their "we must cite real names" policy dangerous? Yes. Is it aggravating they cause SSC to shut down? Yes. But let's keep in the realm of reality, please. It's not a NYT crusade.
[1] That thing is brutal on any PDF viewer I tried. If I were to read the source, I'd find the entire yarn of spaghetti as a million individual line elements, wouldn't I? ;) For people wanting to look - have patience, it takes time to load. On macOS, most PDF viewers actually fail to display it. FineReader OCR succeeds, after 25s load time.
The modern left is constantly diving into the statistics of these topics, and if you think they're not it probably signals more that you're just not a part of that discussion. If you've let your conclusions be influenced by SSC and other reactionary blogs I'd urge you to check out some leftist spaces and ask around.
There's a lot of nuance, and more importantly, a lot of disagreement even in those spaces on these very issues.
SSC is not a "reactionary blog" by any stretch of the imagination. The author is well known for their comprehensive debunking of politically reactionary views.
And the author is ethnically Jewish, atheist/agnostic, and polyamourous, so he definitely doesn't fit into the usual stereotypes of reactionaries if he is one
I agree that he does not fit the common stereotypes of reactionaries. But that's really beside my point, I'm referring to his ideas and writing, not his ethnic or religious groups etc.
Oh yes it is. His blogroll is absolutely full of neoreactionaries, and the comments sections are a cesspit of racism and sexism (echoing many of his own views in more crude terms), even before you account for many articles he's written where he takes their argumentative points at face value.
We're talking about a guy who once put up cartoons of people making fun of nerds/gamers next to Nazi propaganda to show how they were the same. If that's where you're getting your "arguments" on workplace sexism and police violence, you're probably a reactionary.
This is really not accurate. There are many topics where appealing to evidence or statistics is Not Allowed in leftist discourse. There are certain realities that are defined as not possible, politically, and permitted discourse flows from that.
The far right is even worse about this, appealing to braindead conspiracy theories, bald religion, fascism.
But the left is _really bad_ as well. Not “conspiracy theory gun nut” bad, but nowhere near “well balanced intellectual curiosity.”
Factual accuracy is the cornerstone of the profession.
In reporting out a story, it is the journalist's responsibility to obtain factual and verifiable information. People are the center of the story, and using their real names adds credibility to the story.
Now, there are circumstances where reporters use pseudonyms for sources --
mainly to protect victims of sex crimes -- or anonymous sources entirely. The
latter is constantly debated among journalists. However, the consensus is using
anonymous sources is necessary when all other avenues of getting someone on the
record is exhausted or the story is so explosive that people close to the
information are willing to shed light on an issue so long as their name is not
used in print, mostly from fear of retribution, which is more common than you
think.
Using anonymous sources to relay secret information like government insiders is very different from public pseudonymous writers. 'Scott Alexander' is of interest only as 'Scott Alexander'; he is famous for writing as 'Scott Alexander'; if you want to find criticism of Scott Alexander, you will find it by asking people about 'Scott Alexander'; and he blogs about general topics with reference to publicly verifiable things like scientific research, as opposed to focusing solely on his anecdotal experience; what does knowing his real name add or let a journalist verify? Does it somehow let you verify that he does in fact blog at SSC...? (Yes, he sometimes talks about his psychiatric patients, but like all psychiatrists, he blends and tweaks stories to protect his patients, and knowing his real name is John Smith gives you no more way of verifying said stories than when they were written by 'Scott Alexander'.)
It’s even worse than not having his name being irrelevant. By forcing the issue the NYT has now become the story. Whatever piece the NYT originally wanted to write is now subsumed by their own actions.
I am not a journalist, but I have to imagine that “don’t become the story” is pretty high up on the list of journalistic ideals.
When it’s someone the NYT feels they want to protect, they will go to any length, even jail time, to protect them. It’s very hard for me not to conclude ill intent on behalf of the NYT in wanting to draw fire toward SSC based on Scott’s ideology. Asking the question “why this story now” in the current hyper-partisan and cancel-rage environment brings me to one obvious conclusion even though Scott himself doesn’t make such a leap.
While he doesn’t directly state it, I got the impression that he felt the motive for doxxing him was that very reason. I may be reading between the lines too much, but I got that impression none the less.
By using his real name, readers who know that name can get more out of the article. Imagine if he is actually a state senator, or a minor celebrity. The reporter here isn't doing the difficult calculus of "does revealing his name do more good than harm" but is instead relying on company policy. Alternatively the reporter has done the calculus and are using policy as a shield. "Nothing personal, it's just business"
Let's change the setting to Weimar Germany, and the subject is a prominent Jewish blogger. Still think it's ok to expose his real identity? "Just business"?
> Anyone, whether it's an individual or group of people, can be "Scott Alexander."
So what? The story isn't about who Scott Alexander is. The story is about the blog. Anyone can go to the website and read the blog (or at least they could before the NYT pulled this screwup). If the NYT wants their story about the blog to be credible, they just need to tell the truth about what the blog says.
> A Warning is a 2019 book-length exposé of the Trump administration, anonymously authored by someone described as a "senior Trump administration official". It is a follow-up to an anonymous op-ed published by the New York Times in September 2018.
The author's name is irrelevant to that story, because the story is about the author only insofar is that relates to the blog, which is written under a pseudonym. In fact, it's actively confusing to bring anything but the pseudonym into this.
I don't follow your logic, maybe I'm missing something. Let's say I publicly claim to be Scott Alexander. The owner of slatestarcodex with the email address scott@slatestarcodex.com also claims to be scott alexander? Doesn't the latter claim carry far more weight? If so, why is the personage relevant?
> Let's say I publicly claim to be Scott Alexander. The owner of slatestarcodex with the email address scott@slatestarcodex.com also claims to be scott alexander? Doesn't the latter claim carry far more weight?
It's just an email address. It could be Scott or it could be someone else. Yes, common sense would say it's Scott, but the reporter would have to still prove it's him. If you claim to be Scott, too, that will also need to be checked out.
Many people will take that information and run, but if you're writing for a national outlet, where accurate reporting is everything, your editor will say, "Yes, that might be Scott, but how do you know? What proof can you provide? If we get called out for a fact error, can you refute that claim?
How does providing a last name make his authorship of the blog more credible though? And how does publishing it help? I don't see how the reporter or the readers have any way of verifying that the blogger of SSC has a last name matching the one from the article.
Forgive me for the repetition you are about to see, I'm attempting to apply a bit of formality to the reasoning in question:
The Scott who posts at slatestarcodex.com is the Scott who is scott@slatestarcodex.com.
Therefore, the material Scott when attempting to pin down Scott in the context of slatestarcodex is scott@slatestarcodex.com.
Human X out in meat space could or could not be Scott, but that much is immaterial, as scott@slatestarcodex.com has been shown to be directly linked to Scott Alexander the blogger as a means of contacting him.
Thus I ask: what better proof could one have that scott@slatestarcodex.com is Scott Alexander, author of slatestarcodex?
> Thus I ask: what better proof could one have that scott@slatestarcodex.com is Scott Alexander, author of slatestarcodex?
From an editor's point of view, that's not enough, assuming the reporter has not done any form of reporting through interviews, public records and other methods.
I think you've missed the point. The point is that even if Scott were in fact a conglomerate of twenty people, Scott's writing is still the same, and is what draws people to the blog, and is ultimately why there's any story to be written at all. Nobody, but nobody, cares about the actual human originator(s) of the posts; it's the persona who matters.
Agreed, the author who writes under a pseudonym to protect himself should definitely be part of the story. We definitly talk about Scott Alexander, the pseudonumn everyone knows to be connected to the blog.
I'm not sure why though, the NYT, would need to know the name that is purposely never used.
If you really need the name sooo bad, then just don't dox him and drop the article. That's perfectly fine.
As long as they don't dox him everyone is cool.
If they can't write the article without doxxing him then they should just drop the article.
Whatever they do they shouldn't dox him. And if they can't write the article without doing so, then they shouldn't write it.
Ah, I see you're from a different culture to me. I gave up reading anything that looks like mainstream news, and am much happier for it, in part because I wholeheartedly disagree with the mainstream news's founding sentiment which you summarise as "and that's important".
So is it safe to assume that the NYT always refers to Jon Stewart as Jon Leibovitz? Mark Twain as Samuel Clemens?
Maybe one could make an argument for a stage name or pen name being different (and there are many of those), but could Scott Alexander not also be considered a pen name?
Having worked in a tv newsroom before doing IT (so I could see all the reporters' real names), roughly 90% of the reporters used pseudonyms for their professional work. Not sure about the rate for print/internet media, but I'm sure it's still pretty high.
NYT frequently uses anonymous sources, even in cases where it doesn't seem to be necessary. Search for "sources familiar with the matter" +site:nytimes.com for dozens of examples per month.
The difference is presumably that those sources keep feeding them interesting information, so they have to respect their anonymity to avoid jeopardizing that relationship. Scott is only good for one story, so they can treat him however they want.
The Globe and Mail, a newspaper that I have a fair amount of respect for, frequently changes names to protect sources, the subjects of articles and interviewees who aren't willing to be named. They say in the article that the name has been changed. It doesn't detract from the article at all.
> In reporting out a story, it is the journalist's responsibility to obtain factual and verifiable information. People are the center of the story, and using their real names adds credibility to the story.
IMO that doesn't apply to a situation like this. By definition, whoever answers email sent to the address on the SSC blog is the author of the blog. It doesn't matter if that person's "name" is Scott Alexander or Santa Claus or SillyBob5319. The piece the NYT is writing is about the blog, not about the specific, identifiable person who writes it. Knowing who that person is does not add credibility to the story; the credibility is already asserted by the fact that the person who controls the email address behind the blog is talking about it.
To your point about "verifiable information": the only verification needed by a hypothetical reader of this perhaps-never-to-be-published NYT article would be 1) visit the blog; 2) find a contact email; 3) send email asking "were those actually your words quote in this NYT article?" The person's name is irrelevant.
I think what you’re missing is that news stories like this are designed to connect the abstract (ideas in a blog) with real people. Many/most newspaper readers are interested in other people, relationships, who is doing what, and personal connections.
The readers don’t care that there is a controversial (or radical or not) blog on the internet, they want to know if anyone important is related to the blog and whether they should try to gain influence with said people or not (by aligning or distancing themselves from said people, depending on their own connections). For example, only if the author is named can they know whether he/she is a reputable practitioner at a prestigious institution (who can thereby give influence or be vulnerable to controversy), or maybe just a random doctor in a rural town (can be safely ignored).
So for people who rely on networks of other people, such as many political, corporate, and governmental sub-cultures, the NYT gains credibility by naming names and placing people in context. In other words, the NYT is a mainstream product and service, it’s interests are perhaps not most aligned with the pseudo-anonymous world of tech and ideas that the SSC blog and HN itself appeal to and cater to.
Given that "Scott Alexander" is a semi-pseudonym, and that the "real" person behind him isn't famous, I don't see how any of what you wrote really applies. Referring to him in an article as "Scott $HIS_REAL_LAST_NAME" in the article isn't going to give anyone any more of a connection than as "Scott Alexander".
And the NYT doesn't even need to mention whether or not it's his "real" name. It's just a name. I use scare quotes because a "name" is explicitly whatever someone wants to be referred to as. The guy who writes Slate Star Codex is Scott Alexander, full stop.
I don't think tech culture is at issue here; I doubt newspapers had any issue referring to Samuel Clemens as Mark Twain back when he was alive and active.
> In reporting out a story, it is the journalist's responsibility to obtain factual and verifiable information.
Yes, like the fact that a website called "Slate Star Codex" exists and particular posts in it say what the article says they say.
There is no reason why a story about the blog needs to include the real name of the author, when that real name isn't even revealed anywhere on the blog. The story is about the blog.
Reporters will try to get the person on record, but in the end, it's up to the source.
If he or she agrees to go on record, they should understand the potential risks.
It would behoove the reporter to lay out the options. Tricking someone to say something without knowing whether he or she is on the record is a big no-no.
Ehhh, I don't think this accurately represents the situation with "on the record" or "off the record":
1. When a journalist identifies themself as a journalist, all conversations thereafter are assumed to be on the record unless specified otherwise.
2. Statements can't be made off the record after the fact--you have to say something is off the record before you say it for it to be considered off the record.
3. This is only journalist tradition, not law. Even if you say something is off the record, there's no real incentive for a journalist not to just publish it anyway, except their integrity. Journalists can and do break this rule, especially when they disagree with the person whose words they are reporting.
Publishing the article with his full name if he's OK with that is an acceptable outcome.
Binning the article entirely if he's not OK with publishing his full name is also an acceptable outcome (though honestly it's a waste of time on all parties and it would have been better to make this constraint clear up front).
But publishing the article anyway and releasing his full name against his will, when he's the primary source for the story? That seems like a no-no. Interestingly, this hasn't happened yet, and seems like it may never at this rate.
The "constraint" against revealing Scott's real name has always been clear up-front to people who were familiar with his work, even on-line. If it wasn't clear enough to this NYT reporter, that's their problem.
Ok, but is it reasonable for people to understand the potential risks?
I don’t see any reporting on the dangers of talking to reporters. Where is the NYT piece on what happens to people after they have been linked to something in the news?
I think that given Scott Alexander’s experience, ‘don’t talk to reporters, ever’, is as sound advice as ‘don’t talk to the police without an attorney’.
The policy doesn't even seem to be very consistently applied. There are a couple excerpts from articles floating around that happily use pseudonyms for, eg, one of the Chapo podcast hosts.
Wow, this is egregious. I already didn't have any respect for the NYT, but I'm surprised that a writer of theirs would lie so flagrantly about being chained by bureaucracy.
Generally it's anonymous sources who tell the wild and not-necessarily-true stories that drive clicks. A policy limiting their use is intended to make the publication more sober. But that's supposed to happen by just not printing the story. Outing people who don't want to be outed is something else.
An anonymous source seems materially different from a pseudonymous source, especially when that source is being quoted about their enormous body of work.
