Do Not Trust Journalists – A Mormon Example | Hacker News Reader

Do Not Trust Journalists – A Mormon Example

scholars-stage.blogspot.com

198 pointsbarry-cotter209 comments

All: there's a decent debate about journalism to be had here. Please keep the comments substantive and within the site guidelines—no flamebait or flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The LDS church is interesting in that it simultaneously large enough and insular enough to make stark differences in journalistic angles sharp.

Journalism often falls into a trap that puts the cart before the horse. It's preordained [no pun intended] what type of coverage many events are going to get. Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it?

A journo doesn't go into something to figure out "what's the deal with [foo]?" That won't sell (not to the public, nor their editors). But the reality is often worse. Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats.

edit: I'm editing out an already-vague story about being involved with something that receives media coverage. I'll just say if you notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter you're a unrelated professional in, being the "who" in receiving end of news coverage lets you see just how much they want to draw conclusions for the rest of the world unless you work on visibility to counter their obvious narrative angles. And the worst thing is, once this is the game it doesn't matter how right or wrong they are because organizations are going to fight negative coverage either way.

> notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter

This is a key takeaway that, I suspect, everyone who has ever been interviewed, covered, or quoted in the press feels.

Every time you see a story in the general media that grossly misrepresents a subject you know well, remember that feeling. Because for every other topic covered, I guarantee there is a domain expert feeling as you did.

I’m three for three in terms of regretting journo contact. Whether it was the local rag or a national broadsheet; misquotation, glib misrepresentation and sheer fabrication are inevitable results.

Corollary: reserve your greatest mistrust for anyone that openly and actively courts the media. They are well aware of the outcomes and are manipulating the game. This includes your in-house PR team and most elected officials, including the ones you voted for.

> Every time you see a story in the general media that grossly misrepresents a subject you know well, remember that feeling. Because for every other topic covered, I guarantee there is a domain expert feeling as you did.

I learned that in the 80's. I was working in an office building that developed a gas leak, and after a couple hours it ignited and blew the roof off.

The 3 local news channels all covered it. They each told starkly conflicting accounts of it. None of this was because they had any agenda. It was just sheer sloppiness and rush to get the story "in the can" and on to the next. For example, one described the building as a warehouse. It was actually an office building, and looked like an office building.

It's interesting how easy it is to forget that feeling.

"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know." – Michael Crichton

I had a profound realization about journalism in college, when I read a popular science article about what it claimed was some astounding discovery in physics, then when I read the original paper realized that the journalist had taken a single sentence from the abstract completely out of context, misunderstood it entirely, and turned it into a sensational headline. I'm sure it was simply because the journalist didn't have a deep understanding of the principles involved in the paper, and that not all journalism is so far from the mark. But it definitely instilled a skepticism of journalism in me.

Yeah, but there's plenty of physicists who don't understand physics among proponents of string theory, multiverses and fine-tuning.

The point is who would you trust for basic news among NYT, Fox News, the Post, the BBC, NHK, Russia Today, China Daily, some crazy Mormon journo?

> This includes your in-house PR team and most elected officials, including the ones you voted for.

Important exception: leakers. (Keep in mind you wrote "mistrust" and not "skepticism.")

That’s fair. Too late to edit but skepticism would indeed target the intended sentiment more precisely.

I’d hesitate to suggest that leakers aren’t playing the same game. Requiring leakers to be entirely pure in motive and innocent in expectation would be a false and unfair standard.

Leakers are playing their part in the same game. In the case of companies I've worked for in the past, leakers were just grabbing cash in exchange for helping the media push the distorted narratives that were already being published, framing the leaker as a hero. This isn't to say all leakers are to be mistrusted; "skepticism" is indeed the right word, and I believe it still applies to leakers.

Edit to add: there are obvious cases where whistleblowing is a necessary and welcome action for ethical reasons, but most often "leaks" that I've seen get blown up by the media over sensitive information that does no one any good, inside or outside of the affected company. I think "737 Max is unsafe"-style leaks are less common.

I was interviewed by a major newspaper twice, both times they published almost the opposite of what I told them. Once they also misspelled my name, which actually made me happy, because it was like "okay, I am definitely not imagining things, they really can't get anything right".

In both situation I was just some unimportant rando. I can imagine that people they dislike get much worse treatment.

> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate.

Matt Taibbi didn't have a story before he began investigating the financial sector corruption leading up to and following the 2008 crash.

Jeremy Scahill didn't know the details of the Gardez massacre until he got a contact to actually drive him to the scene. (An act so dangerous I believe he called "incredibly stupid" in his documentary "Dirty Wars.")

I have no idea what David Barstow thought he had figured out when he wrote the Pulitzer-winning "Pentagon Pundits" story for NYT. But the evidence he uses in the story clearly backs up the meat of his claims, and a GAO report corroborates it. So why would it even matter in this case?

For Seymour Hersh's Abu Graib abuse story his pre-conceived notions are similarly irrelevant due to the photographic evidence.

Ronan Farrow's preconceived notions about the Harvey Weinstein case are similarly irrelevant.

Hell, consider the leaker to Project Veritas who somehow got the footage of Amy Robach talking about ABC shelving her story on Epstein. What's the relevance of Project Veritas' goal or political bent given that was a genuine video of Robach passionately discussing the shelved story?

> I'll just say if you notice how dumb journos are when they cover subject matter you're a unrelated professional in, being the "who" in receiving end of news coverage lets you see just how much they want to draw conclusions for the rest of the world unless you work on visibility to counter their obvious narrative angles.

But for the most impactful ones it's almost certainly not the same "dumb journo" from your area of expertise writing the story. Given that newspapers hire writers with as varied talents as Barstow and, say, Thomas Friedman, your shortcut seems quite likely to lead to a flurry of "dumb journo" false positives.

It's not that sometimes coincidentally they don't ever get things right; it's rather that quite often their biases shine through when their job is to present a more or less unbiased take on newsworthy events --with exceptions for organs who by their nature are biased like "The Daily Republican" or "The Democrat-Constitution", etc.

In essence journalists with bias are TV with laugh tracks. But instead of laughing for us, they make our minds up for us.

There are certainly some who do this, notably News Corp[1]. And the huge presence of that organization gives the impression that all others are this way too.

But it simply isn't true of respectable publications. People don't go to journalism school thinking "I'm going to devote my life to hiding facts". If they do, they don't graduate. And papers aren't interested in hiring people that are going to create an endless stream of retractions. Likewise, any outlet that doesn't issues retractions is highly suspect. So reporters at respectable paper really are trying to find the truth.

Indeed, this whole thread is not about facts but about a person's opinion about the tone of an article. And, quite frankly, a blog post that is lying about the article when he says it only mentions negative aspects of Monson's life[2] Which is probably why the lead image is not actually linked to the NYT article.

Papers often print things people don't want to be true, or say them in ways that offend certain groups. But to rely on a gut feeling or general annoyance or selected anecdotes to decide that a paper is lying would be an error.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

The article focuses on opposition to gay marriage and to women in the priesthood, briefly touching on only an expansion in size of # missionaries and openness of records.

The blog post author argues that Monson had huge influence internationally, the article does not show that.

It’s not about tone, it’s about emphasis.

The New York Times routinely hides facts and generally ignores relevant viewpoints and context when covering substantial topics.

To pick a random example Injust noticed the other day: how often has the New York Times parroted the Democratic talking point that “Medicare is prohibited by law from negotiating drug prices.” It’s a point that is not only misleading but completely non-sensical. (Medicare doesn’t directly provide prescription drug coverage. Prescription drug coverage is offered by private supplemental plans under Part D, which do negotiate drug prices.) I’m constantly running into stuff like that, where journalists unthinkingly repeat talking points that turn out to be misleading upon deeper inspection.

To use another example, the Washington Post recently had to issue a correction in an article that falsely claimed that education spending in the US has decreased over the last several decades.

Perhaps worse still is the narrative and lack of context. How often did the New York Times mention that Trump’s corporate tax cut would bring us in line with countries like Sweden, France, Canada, and Germany? How often do articles about Warren’s wealth tax proposal mention that Sweden and France recently abandoned theirs? How often do they mention that the biggest difference between taxes in the US and in Europe are not lower taxes on the rich, but vastly lower taxes on the middle class? Does New York Times coverage of education ever mention that school choice, including public funding of religious schools, is common in Europe? Does it ever mention that we spend more than almost any other OECD country per capita on K-12 education? Does it ever mention that abortion is legal to 22 weeks in Georgia but only 14 weeks in France and 12 in Germany? Did the New York Times ever put Trump’s “anti-Muslim rhetoric” in context by pointing out that Islamic head coverings are illegal in many European countries? (By contrast, when the international context advances its political agenda, the Times happily provides it. How often does the Times invoke the fact that developed European countries all have universal healthcare coverage, or stronger gun control? Apparently, the views of people on the other side of the pond are highly relevant in deciding what kind of health care system to have, but not in deciding what kind of tax system we should have to pay for it.)

These seem like fair points. So there's definitely plenty of room for improvement at NYT. Do you mind me asking if you have a similarly prepared spiel for Fox News? Didn't they claim the American President wasn't actually American for years? I know this is whataboutery, but I suspect NYT is one of the better media outlets in the US despite the failings you've pointed out.

I’ve don’t read or watch Fox News regularly so I don’t know. The NYT may be one of the better papers, but I don’t find it crosses the threshold of being worth reading.

I don’t really trust the news. I’ll read the Chicago Tribune or Bloomberg to get a general sense of what’s going on, and then try to research specific topics based on primary sources. I really like National Review. Unlike the NYT, NR is explicit about its viewpoint. So even though, for example, I support keeping the ACA, I can read an NR article on healthcare policy because the authors “show their work” in terms of how they perceive the facts to fit into their (generally conservative) take on the issue. That at least gives me a basis for researching things further. But with the NYT, I feel like I’m just constantly being manipulated, and because the NYT is so terrible about citing sources and data, I don’t even really have a starting point for further research.

This is an excellent point about transparency. Not just the NR which is very transparent, but on the other side you have mother jones and democracy now and the like. Those claiming to be purely objective and without bias, NYT for example, are the dangerous ones. Many of the readers don’t think there’s any bias in NYT coverage. Scary. As you said, good authors “show their work.”

organs who by their nature are biased like "The Daily Republican" or "The Democrat-Constitution"

There are a lot of local papers have things like Republican and Democrat in their names for historical, not political reasons or for political reasons that are by now long historical. Here's one example:

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/opinion/columnists/ensley/...

Investigative journalism is not the norm, less so over time.

Taibbi talked about this (again) on Rogan's podcast. Explained (paraphrasing here) that he probably wouldn't have been able to break those stories today. It's just that much harder to get someone to pay for the effort.

On the flipside, I'm very encouraged by podcasters experimenting with long form.

99% Invisible had a brief recap (of the how) of their reporting on homelessness in Oakland. A reporter wanted to really dive into the story. Build relationships with people and follow them around. For months and maybe years. That takes money.

She had to write a proposal, have a plan. Then her editor (publisher?) had to secure funding. Hit up a bunch of relevant philanthropies, pitch the story, just like a startup pitch. 99% is also listener funded.

Pretty much the opposite of ad funded outrage amplifiers, aka corporate media.

I really thought Cringely's core notion for NerdTV was going to become a thing.

Truism: The story is made in the edit.

He'd publish ALL of the source material on a topic. He'd edit and publish his own story. But any one else could also make their own edit and publish their own story.

> Journos think they have everything all figured out before they even investigate. They just need to investigate enough information to slap it into their story as if they were a algorithm automatically writing a sports story from the game stats.

That’s unfairly broad and in my experience, untrue. And to the extent it is true, I would argue that is largely because we have moved to a model that rewards journalism for writing the things people or publicists want to read, making it harder for investigative work that ruffles feathers and makes it challenging to even do the work of learning.

And although I won’t argue that many, many journalists aren’t subject-matter experts in their beats, the good ones are. More to the point, many more are willing to become experts and talk to experts.

And for what it’s with, “what’s the deal with [foo]” was my go-to question when working on big stories when my full-time job was a journalist. I’m a naturally curious person. I want to learn as much as I can about as many things as I can. And maybe I was lucky, but my editors certainly didn’t have a problem with me pursuing those stories — even if I wasn’t able to do as many of them as I would have liked.

> Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it?

Their obit for the previous president, Gordan B Hinckley is quite positive...

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/28hinckley.html

Edit: here are more if people are curious. One before, and one after the Mormon church allowed black people similar position as non-black people. They're still pretty upbeat.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/01/19/archives/david-o-mckay-mo...

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/us/spencer-kimball-mormon...

There's a certain irony in the OP accusing journalists of starting with a premise and working backwards, when the OP did it themself.

I don't really see that here though. He's over-generalizing, but you can't claim that some (many?) journalists don't do exactly what he mentioned. People expect what journalists write to be trustworthy, but too often what they write is not. Think back on the Covington kids saga. They were dragged through the mud and many journalists participated in it. If they get something like that so wrong, despite there being video evidence of the event online, then how are people supposed to trust what they write? Obviously not all organizations are as guilty of it. When I read something by Reuters I'm fairly confident of what I'm reading, but it's much less so with many others.

presumably actual journalists would train against unconscious bias... maybe you're saying we can't expect they be any better than your average person on the street.

I would argue that defending against Bias is the editors job, they are not there to catch typos!

This is true of almost everything human created.

I think the contrast is that the church has been heaped in controversies since Monson became President.

The CES letter came out and 'A Letter to my Wife', which both have historical (from the source LDS.org) sources that basically do a lot to disprove and change the entire understanding of how the church came to be, of what really happened in the days of Joseph and Brigham, and what they were really like..

As an ex-mormon, we were taught deeply all about Joseph, and that he was not a polygamist that started w/ Brigham, the CES Letters (to which the church responded by being (more) transparent and created the Church Essays which back up the CES letters but try to spin it as 'it was the times they lived in'.

A big split in the church for example was when Joseph was hitting it in the barn w/ Fanny Alger a 14 year old (he was 38). Even in that time it was NOT okay to have relations w/ a 14 year old.. the average wedded age was 19 and the average age difference was something like 23:19 a 38 year old marrying a 14 year old was very rare, and when he's already married very improper.

His wife Emma rightly so was very against the practice. The kicker is that the reason Joseph was 'martyred/received justice' was because he'd burned a privately owned newspaper that was about to blow open the polygamy story and destroy his reputation. He couldn't have that so he burnt it down, which led the hidden opposition to turn against him and bring down the state law upon him (rightly so imho).

He basically got what was coming to him, he wasn't a Saint, he was a conman. Just as the church has been conning people by saying that tithes goes towards building temple's and humanitarian aid, but has really been going to investment funds and business building.

Back to the topic at hand, the fact that the church has all these controversies since 2012'ish is probably a HUGE reason that the Times decided not to be Mormon friendly. The church is hemmoraging members (exmormon sub on reddit has > 100k members now). It's excommunicating the 'good ones' left and right like Sam Young who's only sin against the church was calling for reforms regarding children being left alone in Bishop's office where they ask them about their masturbation practices and fantasies and if they act on those fantasies. Having taken DCFS foster care classes and learning about 'grooming', the Bishop's office is the perfect place for grooming to take place, and the fact that numerous Bishop's and ex-bishops are in prison for child abuse cases simply proves that.

It's all just a matter of the 'times we live in now'... don't blame journalism for the slant, blame the times. Just like the church blames every negative historical thing they did on 'the times in which they lived'. Like Brigham who claimed a black person's highest celestial glory would be to be a servant to 'the rest of us' in Heaven. I'm pretty sure in the bible when a prophet 'believes' something that's wrong, doesn't God correct him and MAKE him change the narrative? Isn't it his job to CHANGE the times and belief of the TIMES? Not continue to be prejudicial because it's convenient? If any of them were prophets then they'd be on the right side of history not the wrong side.

Edit adding: Also the November doctrine (November/2015) was a huge thing at the time as well. Basically it stated if you're a member of a family with same-sex parents you couldn't be baptized till you were 18 and partake in the blessings of the faith, unless you basically disown your parents. Many have left the faith over this one change in doctrine.

Sources: https://cesletter.org/ https://www.letterformywife.com/ https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi...

Sam Young has over 1000 stories of abuse of children by clergy in the church at: https://protectldschildren.org/read-the-stories-2/

Thanks for sharing this context--just a small response on polygamy...

> As an ex-mormon, we were taught deeply all about Joseph, and that he was not a polygamist that started w/ Brigham

Polygamy is taught in the Doctrine and Covenants, which almost every Mormon will carry to church on Sunday..

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-test...

> Revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet ... including the eternity of the marriage covenant and the principle of plural marriage.

I wouldn't restrict this to journalists. Wasted a year during undergrad working for a political scientist who knowingly ignored evidence on a historically oriented project that would render their fashionable hypothesis void. Bringing said evidence up in meetings on multiple occasions didn't help my prospects of getting anything positive out of the professional association (besides perhaps that should get out of the racket?).

An afterthought: I suspect this is done subconsciously too quite often by people in such fields as part of their evidence seeking (hypothesis confirmation) procedures which are admittedly more adhoc than those sort of naturally built into many STEM fields (I'm sure someone could provide numerous counterexamples to this latter point though, especially with the replication crisis).

Even in the "quantitative" fields, one must have random inspiration to make a novel idea; faith to go to the effort of the researching it, ego to believe it's worthwhile; and drive to get things done by force of will to survive re: job+funding. An interesting combination of qualities.

On top of that, many concepts are only feasible to measure by using human-invented models+metrics, under very tightly controlled conditions. Oftentimes these metrics' equivalence to real-world circumstances is matter of faith or philosophy.

So everything is untrustworthy. The people doing it can be totally incompetent even in making simple observations. They can be wilfully or negligently unaware of competing evidence or errors in analysis. They can be measuring the wrong thing entirely due to historical precedent or because it's good publicity or because it's impossible to measure the thing you really want to test.

Ultimately this probably shouldn't be surprising to anyone that's experienced the real world practice of anything. But it is worth remembering that anecdotal evidence from your own eyes can be more predictive than statistical evidence from strangers.

I get the feeling that you have a very ingrained idea of what it means to practice journalism and what it means to be a journalist. All of what you wrote goes against the basic principles and ideals of journalism, so I wonder if you mean that current journalism is not living up to it's ideals (I.e. it's a temporary gully) or if you mean it's systematic within the profession?

Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? What's the alternative? Or if there are outlets practicing journalism in the way that you'd approve of, which are those?

>Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism?

I think there isn't one, but I also think that average citizens are already not getting the information needed to participate in a democracy from journalists. Almost any politically important issue is inundated with political advocacy that's masquerading as journalism. That isn't to say that there aren't journalists who don't do this, but rather that as an industry, journalism seems to push a lot of questionable content.

There isn't an alternative to journalism, which is why we should be skeptical of it. Regulatory capture happens in the government. A similar problem can appear in journalism, where a journalism organizations can be "caught" by those looking to control the narrative.

I like the way Reuters does things. They seem to be much less biased than almost any of the generally well-known publications. Even then, they might change in the future.

> Either way, what way do you propose that normal citizens get the investigative information needed to participate in a democracy if we don't have journalism? What's the alternative?

That is a vitally important question whenever ideas like "Gell-Mann Amnesia" come up. Cataloguing journalists' mistakes and ethical lapses is easy, and I think that can sometimes evolve into a cheap cynicism that deprecates the vital job that journalists do, and that cynicism is toxic to democracy.

Journalists are all kinds of imperfect, but despite that journalism still performs a vital function for democracy. There's no other practical way for the public to stay broadly informed with timely information, than to have generalist communicators try to summarize into digestible bites the fire hose of events and specialist knowledge for broad dissemination.

> Who among us couldn't guess what the NYT's take is going to be in a mormon leader's obituary before they write it?

[sheepishly] raises hand

I had the same thought. I'm a NYT subscriber and while I'm not always the most careful reader, it doesn't seem to me the paper covers Mormons who are not Mitt Romney nearly often enough for there to be a stereotypical take

One can be extrapolated with eigenmorality though!

https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1820

You mean this idea?

> A moral person is someone who cooperates with other moral people, and who refuses to cooperate with immoral people.

It's just so naive. A slightly cleaned up version of ordinary tribalism: "we are good and they are bad", with no further justification. Anybody can claim their own tribe is the moral one this way.

Oh, I certainly agree. But a naive algorithm can be used to predict the opinions of the naive.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood you.

I was mostly reacting because I remember reading that blog post when it came out and thinking it was a neat idea, and now I'm recoiling in horror at how terrible it sounds.

The article actually discusses this very argument, though in a slightly tangential way.

I'm grimly curious as to whether or not you really think I'm going to read all that.

This is the perfect and always perfectly accurate response whenever someone links to the Rational-sphere. On the other hand, why use few words when you could use—Jesus Christ—6,663 words instead?

I voted for it because it describes a real problem with journalism as it is practiced today. Journalists focus on the most attention grabbing tidbit that comes to mind from recent events. They do not attempt to get context on it. And do not attempt to inform.

Then when it becomes clear that they have screwed up, they double down on their position because they are important people. They are journalists, and therefore they are right. At least in their own mind.

But I have never seen journalists report accurately on any story that I knew well. And their failure to even attempt it causes great harm to the American public.

Now about the subject in question, as an atheist I oppose the LDS and all it stands for. However this was a man who made a tremendous impact within the Church and around the world. While conservative by today's standards, he was relatively progressive compared to society for most of his life. Even while I dislike his work against gay marriage, I still applaud his work in rooting racism out of Mormon theology. And hearing about his real life accomplishments has left me more informed.

> Journalists focus on the most attention grabbing tidbit

In this case, the NYT's title was "Thomas Monson, President of the Mormon Church, Dies at 90" But the blog's title is "Do Not Trust Journalism"

>they double down on their position

But what the reported on Monson is true! They did not add flattering points the way the church wanted because this is how a free-press in a non-theocracy works!

Except the criticism the article levels isn’t a lack of positivity. Rather it claims that the article ignores the most salient points of a fifty year career in favor of two comparatively recent developments. It even points out the losing battle with the Boy Scouts that serves similar political ends as the points it mentioned.

Whether or not any of this is accurate, I have no idea. But he wasn’t arguing for hagiography.

But what constitutes the most salient points is a matter of opinion. Which explains the considerable length of the NYT obituary[1] In such a lengthy piece, which omitted items could the blogger think were more important than the boy scout lobbing? Because that did affect quite a few thousand lives.

Of course to those who don't think gay's have a legitimate claim to rights, emphasizing discrimination is just a political attack on an otherwise good guy. Just as Fifty years ago bringing up a "good" man's discrimination against African American would be called politically liberal bias. Just as a hundred years before that the legality of Mormonism was merely a political topic, completely unimportant when describing the overall charter of a man.

Those who feel that lgbt people _do_ have these rights will obviously think those who act against those rights are crucially defined by that opposition.

For contrast, consider an extremely philanthropic atheist had worked hard to keep Mormons out of the boy scouts. Should the NYT down play that or would it shameless biased and political to mention it?

It turns out, the NYT wrote a lengthy obituary covering Monson's acts and including boy scout lobbing. And since that last is of extreme interest to millions of people, it certainly qualifies as important enough to be in a paper.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

The author's point is that the obituary only mentioned recent events, ignoring the rest of his career. Most obituaries don't restrict themselves to only the last few years of a person's life, they tend to discuss a range of notable events throughout their life. The fact that the NYT merely focused on events within the last few years implies that they didn't dig very deeply.

I don't read newspapers because I want to read something that fits my worldview, I read newspapers to get information so I can form my own opinion. To do this, I need dependable information that covers enough of the subject matter that my opinion is reasonable.

The freedom of the press absolutely protects their right to release whatever they want, but that doesn't mean I have to continue reading a paper that shows poor journalistic standards. If they're willing to stake their reputation on putting down a recently deceased church leader without bothering to read much into his life, I question the integrity of their articles on more important topics. I would much rather the NYT not cover something if they're not going to put in the effort to cover it well.

I have considered subscribing to the NYT in the past, and this highlights a few reasons why I may want to avoid doing so. I'm interested in the author's opinion of other respected newspapers to see if any of them are more deserving of my attention.

>The author's point is that the obituary only mentioned recent events, ignoring the rest of his career.

But that isn't true: it is the _blogger_ who is shifting the facts to mold opinions

In addition to has lobbying against lgbt and women, the article covers his birth, earliest job, naval career, university degree with honors, wife children and business. It mentions his 1950 bishop appointment, his visits to service men in the Korean war, his 1963 promotion, his presidency, and the expansion of the church under his leadership.

The article even literally says "he embraced humanitarian causes with Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups supporting homeless shelters, food banks, nursing homes and disaster relief efforts in the United States and abroad."

When the blogger claims it only discusses recent events, he is, at best, mistaken. Of course it does not emphasizes or order them in the way the blogger wants which is not surprising in that he would like his religious leader portrayed more positively. Other people, on the other hand are not interested in having articles honed to conform to the desires of a religious group.

Luckily, he has a church run paper he can read and the rest of us have a less religious centered source. Which is exactly how it is supposed to be. What is less clear is why the Deseret News (and other rightist papers) receive so little pressure to change, while the NYT receives a continuous stream of denunciation even from the highest government leaders.

But, as you say, absolutely no-one has to read a particular news paper, that is part of a free press. The other part is that the press be free from government interference.

> Those who feel that lgbt people _do_ have these rights will obviously think those who act against those rights are crucially defined by that opposition.

I don’t think that’s obvious at all. To use a different example, I think people shouldn’t be discriminated against based on their skin color. (This is maybe self serving based on the fact that I’m a brown guy.) But I’m not going to even bother to read an obituary for Bill Shockley or James Watson that starts with a discussion of their racist views rather than their science. It’s fine to add it somewhere below the fold, but to make it the central theme (as the obituary in question did with Monson) would be bad journalism and leave the reader ignorant about the historical significant of the men.

Watson's bigotry was not a key feature of his legacy. It was confined to some comments that would hardly directly impact anyone. And he resigned after it.

Contrasted with his discoveries that will benefit all humanity forever. To a reasonable person, this is obviously more defining than his ineffectual coarse statements at the end of his career.

Conversely, Monson was the leader of a relatively small religious group which he worked to benefit in roughly the standard manner.

But he also used his considerable power to directly lobby and negatively affect thousands of people far outside his own religion. He certainly did not resign over this but worked continuously and unapologetic.

So as you say, it'd be pretty ridiculous to portray Watson's core legacy was bigotry. But clearly reasonable people can disagree about Monson's legacy. Especially those who were directly affected.

Rather than a scientist, I think a better comparison would be other religious or maybe political leaders. Elsewhere I point out complaints about Jefferson Davis' historic portrayal. Another might be Saint Louis of France. Or Pope Gregory VII, reformer and which hunter. (For that matter even the city of Salem Mass is still defined by its lunacy 300 years ago.) Trump's obituary will either list the impeachment first or not, either at length or not. Either way someone will _call_ it biased but that doesn't mean it is.

Plus I don’t think spreading a crazy sect in places that had mostly gotten rid of religion was really to be put on the credit of the person.

Religion was an important force in defeating communism: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12.... The beachheads established by people like Monson are a huge credit to them.

I think his followers maybe (accidentally?) dissembling: He only became president of the Quorum six years _after_ the iron curtain fell. And Mormons account for well less than 0.1% of Eastern Europeans. So to say he had something to do with it is another reason to be suspicious of those saying wanting to change his obituary.

It's hard to judge without actually seeing an example of what it "should look like". If one thinks it should be long, then they should make a strong case for why this person deserves a longer-than-normal write-up. NYTimes typically goes by what they were in the news for, for good or bad, not give personal life stories or resumes, beyond quick summaries. They are a "news" service, after all.

If social-political controversies are brought up, then both sides would probably have to be addressed, which may not always come out flattering from a member's perspective. The church has been staunchly against LGBTQ rights/progress, and generally believe women should be home-makers. Thus the org would probably come out looking like religious troglodytes (from a centrist reader's perspective). It would open the red/blue Culture War Pandora's box. Thus, be careful what you wish for.

Expecting "journalism" to ever mean something noble or impartial is likely unreasonable. Even bare facts can succumb to a political bias of which ones are emphasized and which are held back. As soon as a story is stitched together with an interpreting narrative, any hope for impartiality is gone.

I doubt this is a framing the original author would appreciate, but it strikes me that the NYT is really just another competing religion, delivering a sermon that condemns an outgroup as has been done for ages. I can put on my empathy hat and appreciate the original linked post, just like in isolation I can respect the good values of the Times. And with so much of society being steeped in the religion of the Times, it is important to do the work of being exposed to the others. But ultimately being anti-religion, I'm not interested in actually drinking either pitcher of kool-aid.

Why things used to seem "impartial" was likely a function of a more uniform society. People would consider things like national origin or religious sect to be supremely divisive, but all be on the same page of perhaps we might today call "the conservative agenda". What appeared "impartial" was really just carrying a shared societal bias rather than actually considering different points of view.

The NYT could have sourced most points mentioned by the author from their own archives. Focusing on recent tidbits seems like the result of perverse incentives for quickly readable, attention-grabbing stories.

But I have never seen journalists report accurately on any story that I knew well. And their failure to even attempt it causes great harm to the American public.

What publications do you read? For a random example off the top of my head, I've found that Glenn Greenwald's reporting is exceptional on topics I know well.

Literally the first Greenwald article I came across in a Google search was propaganda: https://theintercept.com/2019/12/16/evo-morales-interview-gl.... Greenwald heaps praise on Evo Morales, calling his ouster from the Presidency a “coup.” The story of Morales’ ouster is as follows:

1) In his first term, Morales pushes through a new constitution, which among other things dissolves the Bolivian Supreme Court. In its place, it creates a high court comprising judges elected from a slate of candidates appointed by the legislature controlled by his party. This constitution has a two term limit.

2) Morales runs for a third term, after getting the high court to rule that his first term didn’t count since it started before the new constitution.

3) In his third term, he solicits a public referendum asking whether the term limit should be waived to allow him to run for a fourth term. In a vote that had very good turn out, the people vote “no.”

4) Morales ignores the referendum. Instead, he goes back to the high court, which rules that the term limits violate Morales’ “human rights.” The court allows him to run for a fourth term.

5) Morales wins the election, but the Organization of American States releases a report finding “overwhelming evidence of vote rigging.” Massive protests start in response to the report.

6) Morales slowly loses the support of key institutions, including the police. Many members of his own party resigned. A major labor union called for him to resign.

7) The account is disputed at this point. Morales supporters contend that the military then withdrew its support and encouraged him to resign. Morales opponents say that he ordered the military to crack down on protestors, and they refused. Even taking Morales’ supporters at face value, at most what happened is that the military encouraged him to resign after he lost the support of key institutions and many members of his own party.

8) Claiming that he was deposed in a coup, Morales flees to Mexico.

9) Subsequently, Morales’ party basically told him not to come back.

Aside from hunting at the term limits, Greenwald mentions none of the real story.

Morales's oust was a coup by any real definition of the word, and your story is ignoring reality.

A military coup is where the military overthrows a legally elected government and seizes power for itself. Morales was illegally and corruptly elected, and the military did not seize control: https://thehill.com/opinion/international/472356-dispelling-.... It’s not a coup for the military to withdraw its support for a head of state that’s taking illegal action. (Consider a similar situation. Trump packs the Supreme Court and runs for a third term in violation of the term limit. He wins, but in an election where UN election monitors find “overwhelming evidence” of fraud. Military officials, who take an oath to defend the constitution, would have a duty to refuse to accept his authority.)

More to the point, Greenwald omits all the background information necessary for the reader to decide whether there was a coup. The military didn’t just one day decide to stop supporting Morales after 14 years. It happened only after a series of events—illegal actions by Morales and key institutions abandoning him.

You are right, I overstated the case.

My impression is that Glenn Greenwald's reporting is indeed excellent. However my knowledge of secret surveillance is from the writings of people like him - it is not a subject that I have independent knowledge that I can verify anything from. Furthermore at this point I would consider him more of a subject matter expert than a general journalist. Reporting on the same topics in CNN or the NYT tends to be pretty shoddy.

That said, there are some publications, such as Propublica and The Economist that seem to consistently do a good job of reporting. So it is not all. But it is a lot.

That said, I was basing my comments on my personal expertise on programming, math, physics and a handful of celebrities that I happen to know personally. Reporting on all of those is pretty uniformly terrible.

I agree though I think blaming journalists is a red herring. Ultimately most journalists are just trying to make ends meet and are in no better position to change the rules of the game than any other average person (the ad-revenue game). Or, to use a Bezos quote: “Good intentions never work, you need good mechanisms to make anything happen.”

There are outliers, of course, but that’s the nature of large groups of people.

If we as a society want deep, accurate, journalism we have to figure out a way to make it more profitable than clickbait.

To play devils advocate, how much do you personally know about the Snowden leaks that you didn't read from news articles?

There are (exceedingly rare) examples where journalist do get it right, but your example is a journalist reporting on classified material. Unless you're a higher-up in the NSA, you would have no clue if he got details wrong.

To spray holy water on your Devil's advocacy, there have been multiple occasions where documents from NSA have been released to all. Greenwald's reporting has held up when cross-referencing the documents.

Greenwald's reporting doesn't even match the documents he released himself.

I know the topic of Internet communication reasonably well, and in that domain, Greenwald's reporting (PRISM and related stories) is so abysmal that people who read his articles are less informed than people who don't.

His reporting on anything related to Brazilian politics certainly suffers from his own ideological biases that leftyted pointed out in another reply to the comment you’re replying too.

Greenwald has a very clear agenda, so his reporting is exceptional only if you agree with his anti-US stance on almost everything...

This article is spot on. New York Times stories are unable to engage on any subject in its own merits. Everything gets filtered through an increasingly narrow political lens.

My wife and I belong to a church that disagrees with the LDS church in gay marriage and ordination of women. But I don’t want to read the obituary of someone like Monson and have it be about those two issues. There are 16 million Mormons. There is more to their world than those two issues. I don’t read the news to be given a set of talking points fitting into a particular narrative, even when I agree with the narrative. I want to understand the subject on its own terms.

For my own part, as an immigrant from the third world, it’s maddening to read coverage of foreign events in the New York Times. You can’t understand what’s going on in the rest of the world through the lens of liberal New York politics.

Are you RLDS/CofChrist members, by chance?

RLDS members disagree with mainstream Mormons on a few things, but gay marriage and whether women should be ordained are not among them.

The Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) began marrying and blessing same-sex couples in 2013: https://www.kcur.org/post/community-christ-oks-gay-marriage-...

You’re right I was thinking FLDS, my apologies

Which RLDS church are you referring to? Because the one most commonly referred to as such (but now known as Community of Christ) has been ordaining women since 1984, and I believe has started recognizing and conducting same-sex marriages (at least in the US, Canada, and Australia) in recent years.

> liberal New York politics

I would:

a) imagine something called the NY times to be somewhat skewed to NY.

b) It’s only liberal in America. In any other first world country, it’s right wing.

> imagine something called the NY times to be somewhat skewed to NY.

That's not the reputation they sell when they call themselves the "Newspaper of Record"[1]. They also cultivate themselves as internationalists. They do not represent themselves ala NY Post (i.e. "hizzoner")

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_of_record

The rest of the world is much more conservative on social issues than America?

193 UN member states. How many have marriage equality? About 30. So, measured on that issue, the US is more liberal than approximately 85% of the countries in the world.

Unfortunately, this is just saying the US is more liberal than most 3rd world countries which is not very flattering.

The US got marriage equality around the same time as other European countries (in the last 10-15 years). Italy still doesn’t have same sex marriage. The US does pretty well in terms of LGBT acceptance compared to Europe: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/06/27/does-the-world-think-i....

On acceptance of immigrants and race the US is generally to the left of Europe. The notion of an official language is common in Europe and decried as racist in the US. The US was earlier in deploying laws against employment discrimination, and affirmative action than Europe. (France in particular categorically bans affirmative action.) Things like bans on Islamic head coverings are routine and widely supported in Europe, but are beyond the wildest dreams even if Bannon and Trump.

In abortion, the US falls behind because it doesn’t have universal healthcare. But most states permit abortion much further into the pregnancy than almost anywhere in Europe. (Sweden at 18 weeks is on the high end. Many countries are at 12 weeks. The current statutory limit in Georgia is 22 weeks (a federal judge has blocked the 6 week heartbeat law).

Also in press freedom and other civil liberties it is easily comparable to European countries, which is fantastic.

There are some social issues where the US remains conservative like attitudes toward nudity and sex as well as religiosity and church attendance and child punishment. There are more displays of nationalism like school children daily saying the pledge etc. More significant issues include the death penalty and mass incarceration. But in fiscal issues, the US is much more conservatives. Even the party on the "left" houses Bloomberg, Bezos and Soros.

Consumer protection is unimaginably weak by European standards as are protections for employees. All the "liberal" media outlets have a center-right market focus. The WSJ is well to the right of Bloomberg Media and the Economist which themselves are firmly free market. Calls for nationalization of industries that Europeans long ago switched to non-profit are unheard of in the States.

Even universal healthcare, which is universally supported by European parties and much of the third world is a non-starter for Republicans and under endless debate by Democrats. Government sponsored housing is no longer even discussed and structures are even demolished. Likewise support for adequate pensions as well as food and housing for the indigent: "Welfare reform" which was a reduction in the social safety net, was embraced by B Clinton who is considered by many in the US to be an extreme liberal.

The agree that the US is more economically conservative than socially conservative than Europe. (The biggest difference is criminal justice, as you point out. We are far far right on criminal justice issues.) But I’d pick at a couple of specific examples. Social Security is actually on the more generous side compared to most European pension systems. (And attempts to partially privatize it, as has been done in Sweden, have failed.)

I’d say that the US is to the right of most of Europe when it comes to free markets at the national level, but to the left at the state and local level. The US has no appetite for experimenting with markets for big ticket public services and utilities. The US has among the highest percentage of K-12 education being in public schools in the whole OECD. School vouchers are common in Europe. Many European cities have privately operated subway systems. No major US city does.

> Italy still doesn’t have same sex marriage.

Not really. The opposite has been true for almost four years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unio...

A “separate but equal” institution (and not even fully equal at that) falls short of full equality. So the situation in Italy is still a lack of full marriage equality.

> It’s only liberal in America. In any other first world country, it’s right wing.

In 2019, that’s probably not true. For example, the New York Times is championing Medicare for All, while many European systems rely on multiple private insurers. The New York Times is generally hostile to school choice, especially government funding of religious schools, which is common in Europe. American politics, and the New York Times specifically, is substantially to the left of Europe on cultural and immigration issues. Bans on Islamic head coverings, for example, are widespread in Europe, enjoying 80%+ support in counties like France. But the New York Times has been very critical of such things. In another example, French views of the propriety of a country having an official language would be very right-wing to the New York Times editorial staff. The EU is more pro-competition and pro-markets than the New York Times. For example, private operation of the subway in many European cities like Stockholm. The New York Times views many issues, such as broadband, through a liberal social justice lens, which is simply missing in European politics.

No it's still blatantly left-wing in other parts of the world , especially on social issues.

I see no problem with how the Times framed the story, and I’m no fan of the Times.

If Mormons want to oppose same sex marriage and women in leadership, that’s up to them - but don’t get upset if it’s mentioned in your obituary when you’re literally the head of the church.

The Times however is very, very uneven in how they handle this though. They will chide Mormons at any opportunity for sexism or homophobia, but refrain from treating Orthodox Jews or Muslims similarly.

> If Mormons want to oppose same sex marriage and women in leadership, that’s up to them - but don’t get upset if it’s mentioned in your obituary when you’re literally the head of the church.

I've been reading a book of Umberto Eco essays lately. I really like them. Eco manages to synthesize many different historical perspectives into some very general arguments about whichever complicated subject he's discussing.

I think that's basically what the goal of an obituary should be. It should mention this person's opposition to same-sex marriage and the ordination of women. But it should also mention other things, some of which are outlined in this article. Out of all these different perspectives, something like the truth will emerge.

Ideally cover significant events from each decade of his life. There's a lot of material there, and plenty of it has been very impactful. To ignore it speaks of laziness IMO.

> don’t get upset if it’s mentioned

The objection isn't that it was mentioned but that it became the entire story.

Which is not true. The NYT article covers basically everything the blogger writes about.

I didn't read the NYT article. If that's true, then the blogger's complaints would be less justified.

> They will chide Mormons at any opportunity for sexism or homophobia, but refrain from treating Orthodox Jews or Muslims similarly.

For consideration:

* The Times does pretty regularly address the intolerances of the Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities. See recent coverage over religious school funding, undervaccination, and harassment of women and cyclists in Brooklyn. Said communities tend to be concentrated in NY, and so the Times' coverage ends up in the NY section of the paper.

* Mormons are a substantially larger and more homogeneous religious group than either Orthodox/Hasidic American Jews or American Muslims -- there are about 6.5 million American Mormons, the overwhelming majority of whom follow the main LDS church. By contrast, the Orthodox and Hasidic sects make up a minority of American Jews, and only about 3.5 million American Muslims (of all kinds). This doesn't serve as an excuse, only as an observation that intolerance among Mormons is uniformly attested and delivered from the top-down by the sole religious authority in the faith.

After having read the obituary, I fail to see anything wrong with it. The blog post does not give any factual errors, and the alleged omissions about the lifetime achievements of the deceased are actually in the NYT article. The article is also well sourced and the editorial shows a solid research and writing process.

The blog post follows a dangerous trend, where people try to discredit the whole concept of journalism whenever they read something they don't like.

Exactly. The other force at work is rising religious-nationalism which makes it increasingly difficult for the press to speak ill of powerful people.

IDK, I think we really need to have a discussion on what "journalism" means. Articles are becoming increasingly clickbait, and news agencies seem to be more biased than in the past. Perhaps the bias is just becoming more obvious and clickbait is just a natural consequence of increasing competition, but I'm finding it difficult to find news agencies that I can trust to report in an unbiased manner.

I just want to subscribe to a few news organizations that have high journalistic standards so I can get a reasonably complete overview of a variety of current events. But I feel like I instead have to seek out news agencies with opposing biases and hope that I didn't miss a bias (e.g. have a conservative and liberal publication, but what about libertarian, green, etc?).

Why can't I just subscribe to comprehensive journalism? I want to know all of the good and bad things about all sides of an issue, not just the side the author/news agency prefers. Don't tell me how was Monson is without telling me how good he is. Give me as many competing details and viewpoints as will fit in the space available and leave the subjectivity to the editorial section.

I don't think that discussing about nebulous concepts such as "liberal bias" is any helpful. Do you have some examples where you felt that for example a NYT article was missing important information? Which details or viewpoints are missing from the obituary in your opinion?

The Times ended up following up on the controversy this generated:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/reader-center/thomas-mons...

It’s clear that this author and others were really peeved by the way the times covered this, but “don’t trust journalists” is a wrongheaded message imo. You’re able to dialogue with an individual outlet as shown here. And you’re able to overlay different news sources on given issues to get a wider picture if that’s what you want to do. Overall “trust but verify” works exceedingly well, but there seems like a bit of a degree of grief in this writing.

Are there journalists you trust?

I trust citing sources.

I trust multiple sourcing.

I trust verified data and leg work.

I trust intellectual honesty (eg updates, errata, retractions).

I was an activist for a while. Election integrity and voter privacy (secret ballot). I blogged about my efforts. I shared all my work, so people could factcheck too. I revised my views as I learned more. I tried very hard to present the alternate views (conclusions) of the people I disagreed with.

It's no different than investigative journalism.

The real trick, the hard part, is figuring out how to fund the work.

And if I read your blog I probably wouldn't trust your work either. I have no way of knowing if you are citing everything or only the sources that support the story you want to write.

If your point is you should only trust yourself, then that's hard to argue with.

Sure. But then how do you make decisions?

I've resolved this dilemma by settling for True Enough.

I used to be a Popperian. While I still think that's the ideal, in practice it seems impractical.

Now I'm a prediction engine. Learn enough to feel comfortable making a decision. If results don't match expectations, go back and update my ruleset, try again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I trust most journalists. I don’t trust any newspapers.

Most news is too complex for the modern news format. And they have to cover too much information

There are tons of really good journalism books.

For example, Ronan Farrows articles are pretty crappy. But his books, including Catch and Kill, are excellent.

Thanks for the NYT POV. To bad you didn’t notice that the OP addresses the NYT response and judges it lacking.

Please don't be a jerk on HN. It's possible to provide information without that; please do that instead.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It probably is the whole point of the article, but chastising the NYT for writing one perspective on a subject to promote an agenda then going and writing another differing perspective promoting a competing agenda is a bit contradictory.

The author here bashes the NYT because they don't show what he sees as the "good" parts of the Mormon leader - coming from a Mormon perspective, but the whole reason they don't is because they are inherently competing perspectives.

I think its also worth considering what exactly constitutes journalism and the audience a publication is writing for. An obituary isn't just a piece saying "X person is now deceased", it is more like "X person is now deceased AND here is a brief summary of their life". The former is strictly news, the later is news with somewhat subjective attachment (still has facts, but which ones you choose and in what order paint a certain picture). That somewhat subjective attachment is going to be dictated by the audience one is writing for, a liberal audience is going to get a liberal opinion (here painting the Mormon leader in a negative right) and vice versa for a Mormon audience. I do not think this is wrong, it is only natural - you just have to know when something is something is being used to have a specific slant (even when using facts).

As for my opinion, Thomas Monson and the LDS church are backwards group of people whose influence in American society I am happy to see slowly piddle away.

I don't understand why reporting "competing" information is a problem. I'm not reading a news piece to get the author's opinion on something, I'm reading a news piece to get enough information to form my own opinion on something. Therefore, I expect some good with the bad, and if I only get one or the other, the bias in the news organization becomes very clear and I'm less likely to continue reading their articles.

For example, when reading about Trump's impeachment, I care not only about the evidence against him, but also his defense concerning that evidence and an idea of the strength of both sides of the argument. If a newspaper continually stresses one side of an argument, I'll stop reading that newspaper.

I've been on the fence about the NYT, and stuff like this doesn't help my opinion about that paper. Obviously one article about a subject that isn't very relevant to most people won't be the only reason I'd avoid a paper, but it is telling that they're willing to stake their reputation on an apparently poorly researched obituary.

I would be genuinely interested how you come to the conclusion that the obituary is poorly researched. The text itself lists a number of sources and the editorial shows an extensive research process.

The money-shot is in the last paragraph:

> That is the lesson of this entire saga. The New York Times defends themselves in the name of journalism. They are journalists they tell us, not religious propagandists. And with that declaration they reveal the truth: to be a journalist is to write, and to write, and seek credit for what you write even though you know nothing about those things which you write about.

The point of a journalist is not to write your perspective as a member of a group, it is to write as one outside a group. This person was expecting the article/comment/tweet to be written as if from that group, and that is not journalism, that's more like a documentary.

Imagine if all journalistic articles were written from the perspective within that group, would that really be a more informational and educational read?

If you disagree with how journalism sees your particular group then perhaps it's time to think about if this is how that grouping is actually seen from the outside. If there is a clear dissonance between how you see your group and how it's seen from the outside, ask yourself why that is.

> The point of a journalist is not to write your perspective as a member of a group, it is to write as one outside a group. This person was expecting the article/comment/tweet to be written as if from that group, and that is not journalism, that's more like a documentary.

There's actually a middle ground here. An obituary should really be a kind of capsule biography that explains someone how they're seen inside and outside their group. The NYT didn't to that, but rather they dwelled too much on a few controversies and almost entirely glossed over why and how he rose to the position he had. There's room for improvement in how they handled this.

The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins humorously imagined the same treatment being given to other members of America’s recently deceased: “Hugh Hefner, the Playboy founder who rebuffed demands that he stop publishing a misogynistic pornographic magazine and exploiting young women, died at 91."

That would be an equally legitimate take.

If he'd lived two more years, he probably would have had obituaries like that. The Guardian did give him a obit like that. "The man who created Playboy, who has died aged 91, has been remembered as an American icon – but others recall a controlling, emotionally abusive manipulator"[1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/28/hugh-hefner-pl...

But a take they didn’t chose to take, that’s the point.

It's not very meaningful. The article is saying you can't trust journalists in general because one of them had a take he disliked about a person he admired. The existence of a more gentle take about someone else on tells you about the editorial view of one writer or one editor at one outlet. It doesn't establish some sort of standard to which all other obituaries must adhere.

The author appears to have missed the takes that were actually that (Guardian was one).

He missed quite a few: but of course the author is not writing to inform but shape opinion of a religious leader.

As a European with little knowledge of Mormonism apart from the basics of its history, this obituary was far more informative of what the religion and its leadership stands for than the article linked itself.

Most outsiders don't care, at all, what effect a leader had inside a sect, but how their work affected the outside.

I found the information on their helping the poor and needy, and helping educate over 100,000 people who otherwise wouldn’t have had that scholastic opportunity, worthy of report.

That information is in the NYT article too. Which is probably why the blogger did not actually link to it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

I don't see anything about the education program in NYT. It doesn't make a huge difference though.

I scanned through http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co... as well. Nothing stood out as a fundamental change that would explain why the blogger's unbiased perception could be different from others'.

That information is greatly exaggerated.

The LDS Church spends less than .5% of its income on charitable donations ($40 million/year), and currently owns 2% of Florida and a $100 billion dollar investment fund.

How are you arriving at that number?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not release their charitable financials to the public (because they believe in the Biblical tenet not to brag about one's charitable work for the praise of the world). The only solid number released was related to their LDS Charities organization, which has donated $2.2 billion in 197 countries since 1985. This branch does not represent the totality of their charitable work. It is just one organization. For example, this number does NOT include the charity their bishops dole out on a weekly basis, does NOT include donations through their Perpetual Education Fund, and does NOT include the time/money their individual members give.

They recently offered more information about their charitable work throughout the world and claimed their charitable donations equal "billions more" than the $2.2 billion mentioned above (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-of-j...).

Because there are no solid or accurate numbers publicly available, we really don't have any idea what percentage of their income goes out to charitable donations, so these kinds of statements are simply not valid. Does it really matter though? In my opinion, another person's charity isn't any of my business. Who am I to judge another person's gifts?

And there is merit to not spending the majority of incoming donations immediately. The church is very conservative and follows the same advice it gives of living within your means and saving for a rainy day.

Yes, the church invests excess funds, and it does so to secure it's ability to continue its current outlay long term. There were times in the church's history where it was in need of money, and it does not want to ever go through that again.

Other charitable organizations also invest excess funds for similar reasons. The church additionally believes in a breakdown of society before Christ comes at the end of the world, so doesn't it make sense for that same organization to diversify their assets?

Personality, I wish the church was more open with how donations are used, and honestly I think churches should be required to be transparent in how funds are used, just like other classes of tax exempt organizations. However, that doesn't mean that slamming an organization over mere speculation makes sense. There may be a story there, there may not, but we won't know without more information.

His efforts in charity are mentioned in the article. I feel like most people that criticize the obituary have only read the tweet about it.

It could be that since the obituary is behind a paywall, many people don't know what it contains, other than what they've heard second-hand.

There are 25,000 Mormons in New York City. They’re a vanishingly small percentage of the New York Times’ readership. I think the paper would have poorly served ita readers by delivering a hagiography for him from the perspective of his religious followers.

Truth matters. And selective editing of the truth to fit an agenda is journalistic malpractice.

Whitewashing the reputation of a famous person—although it happens all the time-would be far worse malpractice

Whitewashing is hardly the only alternative. A more complete picture, including all these things, is also possible.

I found it amusing that the writer (and journalist) listed opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment among achievements worth defending.

It still hasn't passed, to all our disgrace. It only needs a few more states to ratify it.

Have you read the Equal Rights Amendment?

The idea behind it is nice, but as written it is an absolutely terrible bit of law, rife with unintended consequences. We already saw what happened with prohibition; opposition to the ERA is the right choice.

What exact issues do you have with the Equal Rights Amendment? The amendment is quite simple. It's just three sentences that state that men and women should have equal rights.

> Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

> Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

> Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

All government programs that benefit women suddenly become illegal. No more mandatory FMLA maternity leave. No more WIC, especially not for single mothers. Women would have to register for the draft. No more government support for women's shelters. No more presumption in favor of women in family courts. No laws requiring female representation. And a huge transfer of legislative power from the state to the federal level, for no clear benefit.

Now, you could argue that some of those might be good things, but I guarantee that will not be a universal opinion. And you could argue that, rather than cutting services for women, we should increase services for men--but the ammendment does not require that, and are you really ready to gamble that that's how it would go?

And what about discrimination based on gender--which, after all, is not the same thing as sex?

Yes, all government programs that exclusively benefit women would become illegal. And, all government programs that exclusively benefit men would also become illegal. These are not unintended consequences; equality for all sexes is the explicit purpose of the amendment.

I also just want to note that most of the programs you mention actually wouldn't be affected. WIC provides food money to single fathers in an equal fashion to the food money given to single mothers. Similarly, FMLA provides equal leave for both mothers and fathers. Family courts have already moved past special treatment of women; they now operate in a best interests of the child doctrine.

> Family courts have already moved past special treatment of women; they now operate in a best interests of the child doctrine.

That is incredibly naive. I personally know fathers who have been screwed over by a court system that is biased towards the female gender over all other considerations, to the point that it will grant sole custody of children to an ex-wife with multiple severe mental illnesses living with known-abusive grandparents who have been reported to CPS by their neighbors and which refuses to even enforce visitation rights for the father (who, y'know, actually has a job, and actually pays more attention to his kid than just shoving her in front of a TV all day when he is allowed to see her). And all because "of course the child should be with her mother".

> These are not unintended consequences

OK, perhaps you personally have thought of all of those consequences and you actually want them. And you don't care about gender-based discrimination, only biological sex. But here's another potential side-effect:

The concept of "separate but equal" has already been thoroughly shot down with regard to racial discrimination. If the ERA were passed, I guarantee you will see legal challenges to "separate but equal" treatment of the sexes. Taking that to its logical extreme, that means the ERA could be reasonably interpreted to mean that it is illegal to have, e.g., separate men's and women's locker rooms in public schools.

And just imagine how many parents would be up in arms over their daughters being forced to share a locker room with teenage boys.

The issue of gendered locker rooms and bathrooms can be reduced to an economical problem of building personal unisex booths. It is a bit more expensive, through compared to the budget of building a whole school it is a very minor increase in construction costs.

So the issue is an 0.(many zeros)1% increase in taxes to address that particular issue.

...And even if the GP does name issues, what possible connection could there be to Prohibition, other than the fact that both involve constitutional amendments?

The connection to prohibition is that it seemed like a good idea at the time, but the unforeseen side-effects were way worse than the problem it was intended to solve--hence an additional ammendment was required to repeal it.

I didn't interpret that as a defense. I interpreted that as noteworthy and an indication of the complexity of his tenure that wasn't adequately captured.

I think you're almost certainly correct. The "giveaway" to someone from a Mormon background was the inclusion of "Monson led the committees that codified the doctrines taught in every Mormon meetinghouse across the Earth." in the article. This sentence probably sounds completely banal and uninteresting to outsiders, but the "correlation" process, as it is called, it largely hated by both the most fundamental believers AND the most rabid apostates. The believers hate it because it's watered down all the crazy (and frankly much more interesting) parts of Mormon doctrine, Ex-mormons hate it because it whitewashes away many uncomfortable historical truths. The institution is invested in it, however, as a way to try to stamp out the legacy of polygamy.

Like you say, the point of this article is that there's a lot of "there" there, but it takes more digging to find that NYT was willing to invest.

For what it may be worth: As a lifelong member who knows many others and reads a lot, I am completely unaware of anyone hating correlation. It has never come up in any conversation or thing I have read, until now that I see your comment. On the other hand, I am aware of tremendous amounts of original historical source materials and information on many topics that have been published and made freely available on the 'net, to anyone, including about experiences and statistics around polygamy and many other things). When I compare the journals I have read (handed down) and oral family history stories, personalities I have known, etc etc., with what I have seen of Church publicationis and online materials, I see nothing being whitewashed or hidden.

It was a strange read. There were times I wondered if it was a parody. Praising all of the things the guy did to keep women and gays as second class citizens.

Best that could be said is that at least he did not appear to be a racist, so that's nice.

As a Chinese person, I've often felt that since about 3-4 years ago, NYT's coverage of almost everything China has become increasingly biased, and is increasingly targeted not at the government but at making ordinary Chinese people's lives difficult. However, very few Western people care about this, since the reports fit in with the narrative that people are already antecedently inclined to accept. When it's something one likes to hear, truth can take a back seat (especially when the domain is not one in which it pays to know the truth - there's not a hard reality you can run into). Therefore I'm very pessimistic that reports like this could make any difference. Yes, every once in a while we read sth in our own domain of expertise, and we wonder how we could justify being so trustful of everything else we read. But eventually we will all go back to our old ways, especially when (i) what we read is what we like to read, and (ii) it's not a subject on which there's any 'hard reality' to bump into.

Of three news articles of which I have first hand knowledge, two completely misreported facts. They were exercises in reinforcing a narrative - the truth be damned. The third was accurate, but it was over 45 years ago.

Of course rather than taking a bloggers opinion of bias as fact, one could actually read the piece and see for oneself whether it is as outrageously biased as is claimed.

Unfortunately, no doubt due to some oversight on the part of the blogger, the link to the original, rather than being with the top image, is actually pretty buried so here it is.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

Left unsaid: whether you should trust journalists you consider your political allies.

Only if you have them on the hook for a longer engagement.

I joke that if you want to understand an issue, the local paper is great for eliminating reasons. They never tell the whole story and are rarely interested in it.

Talking to a journalist is like talking to the police. They have a specific agenda and standard for publishing that doesn’t necessarily align with telling a story as you perceive it. You have to be able to manipulate them, which is best left to professionals.

A lesson that I have seen learned the hard way. The reason why celebrities say "No comment" is that it can't be misquoted.

My favorite example of a deliberate journalistic misquote is that my mother was on a phone with a journalist and used a phrase starting with, "It is not that I..." It appeared in print as, "It is...that I..." Yes, the word "not" was replaced with "..." to reverse the meaning of what she said so that she would look bad.

That was my experience. I once talked to a newspaper reporter for 20 minutes and he used maybe a 10 word quote that I felt did not represent the point of what I had explained to him. I would not speak to a reporter unprepared again.

The writer of this piece is either naive or disingenuous. The NYT is primarily focusing on how this person's actions have affected their readers and at the end of the day the LDS's homophobia and misogyny are the ways in which the LDS has most affected NYT's readers in New York and Americans nationwide. That's why the NYT leads with those sections and focuses the most on them. There isn't an "agenda" here trying to dirty the image of the Mormon church: the church earned that reputation through actual actions that harmed millions of marginalized Americans.

fish, water etc. everyone thinks their weltanschauung is simply reality. a wise writer knows that reality is complicated. the focus on politically convenient grievances and total ignorance of conflicting information should give you pause.

But how does homophobia and misogyny within the Mormon church affect people who aren't in the Mormon church?

Also I find it telling that you say "the church earned that reputation". Yes, the church, not a single man. The leader of a church is rarely a king who can change doctrine on a whim. If this man had repented of homophobia and misogyny, he may well have been supplanted by someone else the very next day. So among the many things wrong with the wording of this obit, the fact that they call him out personally as homophobic/misogynist rather than something more accurate like "under his leadership the CHURCH was homophobic/misogynistic" is a big one.

> [H]ow does homophobia...within the Mormon Church affect those outside the church?

Prop 8 is perhaps the prime example of how it affects those outside the church. The LDS church was the main financial contributor to the yes on prop 8 campaign.

We could also mention the Boy Scouts here too. I was a scout, but some of my valued peers were gay and the Mormon church led a witch-hunt against gay scouts, as well as atheists (as I personally identify). My friends felt essentially forced to quit scouting due to the policies attributable to the Mormons.

I agree journalists are often ill informed, agenda driven and misleading.

In this case though what did they say that was untrue? The church and Monson did hold these views and continue to. Stand up proud about it if that's who you are. You can't have it both ways.

If the complaint is a negative slant, well, that's modern agenda driven journalism apparently. Feel free not to subscribe or start your own paper. (Which they do). But don't expect positions contrary to the currently popular to be minimized in promotion of your niche in a major paper.

He's right to not trust journalists, and that's precisely why I don't trust his article.

He talks about spreading the true story of Thomas Monson but what I see in his article is an attempt to pave over the negative contributions and criticism he has received because he did some amazing things in his youth. No one person is owed immunity from criticism and there is plenty of critique to be thrown here.

But they didn’t even report the accomplishments: they focused on their agenda and not the whole story. They omitted the parts that didn’t support their premise. And it was an obituary! By definition it is supposed to be about the life and times of the person and their lasting impact.

I'd encourage you to take a closer look at the article, which by no means is as negative as your post and others have indicated[1].

1: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

I just read it, and the "positive" stuff is in the last half of the article. Basically, the first several paragraphs are about some relatively niche recent events, mostly focusing on gay/lgbt policies (didn't mention the impact of that until near the end), women, and changes to missionary age. It felt like it was intended to drive a specific narrative until the tone changes a bit near the end of the article.

Newspaper articles tend to start with the most relevant points first, and then expand as the article continues, and which details get put where are very important. I often read only the first few paragraphs unless I'm very interested in the details, so it makes sense that someone would be frustrated by the choice of what to put in the first few paragraphs.

If I were to write this piece, I would mention the focus on working with other religions for mutual charitable goals (last couple of paragraphs) and emphasis on caring for widows (his personal focus) along with recent events (lgbt policy change, for example) since that more completely communicates his legacy. Him "not bending" to a relatively small protest isn't particularly relevant to his legacy and perhaps belongs further down the article. The obituary doesn't need to be positive, but it should be a relatively diverse view of his legacy, and the beginning is especially important to that, and that is where I think this article failed.

I don't expect a newspaper to sugarcoat someone's life, but nor do I think it's acceptable to put mostly negative things at the beginning and leave the positive for later where most readers won't read. The beginning should be a relatively comprehensive view of the subject matter that covers good and bad in roughly the same ratio as the rest of the article, which should have a relatively unbiased selection of facts from the subject matter.

I'm not sure if this hits a personal nerve for you, but I think this exactly as balanced as you're insinuating. For example, see the first paragraphs:

"Thomas S. Monson, who as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 2008 enlarged the ranks of female missionaries, but rebuffed demands to ordain women as priests and refused to alter church opposition to same-sex marriage, died on Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City. He was 90.

"His death was announced on the church’s website.

"Facing vociferous demands to recognize same-sex marriage, and weathering demonstrations at church headquarters by Mormon women pleading for the right to be ordained as priests, Mr. Monson did not bend. Teachings holding homosexuality to be immoral, bans on sexual intercourse outside male-female marriages, and an all-male priesthood would remain unaltered.

"Mr. Monson displayed a new openness to scholars of Mormonism, however, allowing them remarkable access to church records. But as rising numbers of church members and critics joined the internet’s free-for-all culture of debate and exposé, his church was confronted with troubling inconsistencies in Mormon history and Scripture. The church even found itself at odds with an old ally, the Boy Scouts of America, which admitted gay members and gay adults as scout leaders."

---

Paragraph one has a 'positive' thing (more women in LDS churches) and a 'negative' thing (no support for LGBT marriage).

I'm not sure how many obituaries you've seen of contentious figures, but this feels standard.

Here's another obit of someone where positive and negative views are discussed:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/science/robert-moir-dead....

Not to belabor the point, but here’s a third obit.

There’s almost a formula being used to describe positive and negative aspects of figures’ lives:

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/27/dj-don-imus-dead-at...

It's certainly possible to be defined by the things that were within your power but didn't do.

If the deed is considered bad enough, it eclipses most other things: Jefferson Davis' obituary was also considered overly harsh by a segment of the population.

While Monson is obviously not Jeff Davis, his opposition to the rights of a minority hurt an awful lot of people.

Both NYT's and scholars-stage's obits are editorial.

Only the news of Monson's passing is reporting.

Neither did any journalism.

Much as I dislike NYT (and by extension all corporate media), I'm unmoved by this criticism.

scholars-stage defended a person he (she?) respected and published his (her?) own obit. That is right and proper.

This person is obviously not a disinterested party--yet still not wrong!

I've done business in many different sectors over the years, and in every single one, the venality and nearsightedness of journalism was both strikingly obvious and aggressively exploited.

Journalism schools teach provocation. Look for the edge, look for the spin. There's no money in objectivity.

I didn't go to journalism school but I did take a couple of journalism classes as part of my writing degree. We were taught to be objective and not provocative in my classes.

The NYT accurately reports the death of a Mormon leader who worked against women's and gay rights. This blogger does not deny the accuracy of this but thinks this is an unimportant part of the Mormon leader's life, not worthy of mention. Of lower priority than the standardization of the three hour sermon for example. Regardless, the relative importance of theses issues is his _opinion_ .

And 180,000 saints agree (the author and Mormoms generally refer to themselves as saints). But it is still an _opinion_ by a group who are so opposed to gay rights, they continue to oppose a pro-equality supreme court decision that included four conservative justices. Presumably the many millions of "non-saints" this discrimination works against in daily life have an opposite _opinion_ about this issues' importance.

The blogger, also accuses the NYT of being click bait. The NYT's title was "Thomas Monson, President of the Mormon Church, Dies at 90". The blogger titles his post "Do Not Trust Journalism" stretching what is an accurate report whose topic ordering he does not like, to imply every story in the NYT and indeed all journalism is deceitful. For example, Reuters had the same title.

I too could become an obscure blogger with religio-emotionally shaped opinions and clickbait titles if I posted a one side response article titled "Mormons Oppose Free Press". Such a story would be as unworthy of serious attention as this one.

But instead, this story is taken seriously. An indication of how far down the anti-press, anti-reality, pro-religious-nationalism rabbit hole we have fallen. A result of a trend where tales from the most obscure parts of the web are sought out to match the readers preconceived opinions and then taken as complete gospel over all else regardless of implausibility or internal inconsistency.

Religions and certain secular leaders and their followers often dislike the press and much of literature, it will never be too hard to find someone somewhere claiming things they don't like are deception and thus presumably "evil". For example in Italy at this same period, you will find outraged denunciation of press "lying" criticism of Padre Pio.

Conversely, it would be nice to talk with clear headed people about a solution to the rise of religious-nationalism including its war on the press rather than debating obscure right wing blog's cry of "Lügenpresse". Just as it's nice to talk to informed people about climate without repeatedly facing a stream of deniers.

Ultimately I image many will decide that truth is between these two: that reality lays halfway between the uncomfortable facts they learn and the things that they wish were true.

> This blogger does not deny the accuracy of this but thinks this is an unimportant part of the Mormon leader's life, not worthy of mention.

Are you sure? I didn't read the article closely but I didn't see him arguing that those things shouldn't have been mentioned; just that they shouldn't have been the only things mentioned.

I can not be completely sure. It is implied but not explicitly stated. He praises Monson's opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment so perhaps he would want the anti-gay stance included but in a positive light.

What the heck? The job of a journalist is not to tell you what you want to hear. I’m sorry if some Mormons didn’t want to hear unpleasant things about their leader, but if they were true then they were news

In a way, that's kinda what the article is about. In a different perspective, the author is saying that journalists these days are just telling us what we want to hear, or whatever controversy sells.

The idea that the leader of the Mormon church is a misogynist and a homophobe, that he stood in the way of LGBT rights, well, that's a story that sells these days. That goes against my own moral values, but that's not the be-all end-all.

This is a man who lived until he was 90, and accomplished Amazing Things within his niche social institutions and also in how that social institution impacted the world around it. Ninety Years of life and accomplishments, and yet his obituary by the New York Times was minimized into the social controversy of the past five years.

I would stand totally opposed to this dude on a moral level, but I can't help but think that's kind of sad.

The author's issue isn't about the fact that the news covered this controversy. The author's issue is that this man's obituary spoke nothing about his actual life, but only the controversy.

It'd be like if Elon Musk, in the years before he died, came out as a raging racist homophobic misogynist, or whatever people think is controversial in that future. And his obituary in the NYT talked about how he was a shitty controversial person, instead of talking about SpaceX, or Tesla, or any of his actual accomplishments in his Life.

If you accomplished great, impactful things that changed the world for the better, should that be absolutely invalidated if you were an asshole by the social/cultural/moral standards of the time period in which you died?

> The idea that the leader of the Mormon church is a misogynist and a homophobe, that he stood in the way of LGBT rights, well, that's a story that sells these days.

This isn't just an idea: it's a core aspect of Thomas S. Monson's (and every LDS leader's) legacy.

We have a significant number of LGBTQ+ children committing suicide over the LDS Church's doctrines of homophobia.

The LDS Church likes to tout its $40 million per year charitable donations while hoarding $100 billion in a tax exempt investment fund.

The LDS Church is very successful in creating a positive image that is extremely misleading. It's no surprise to me that an active member sees an honest accounting of Monson's life as misleading, because he himself has been so thoroughly misled. I know because I have been in his shoes.

At the risk of overkill, not sure if this is going out of line, but the above is stated strongly and I think other info could provide some balance. Corrections/questions welcome, and there is an email address at my site below if that is helpful.

Church members are repeatedly and strongly taught to love and serve everyone regardless of agreement or disagreement, and that every human being is a precious child of God who should be treated with courtesy. The Church has encouraged legislative action to protect LGBT people from discrimination in housing, employment, etc, while simultaneously protecting religious rights (the "utah compromise" etc, such as maybe at https://www.npr.org/2016/06/01/480247305/how-the-utah-compro... ).

Here is some alternative info (a Church-owned media outlet) on the finances:

https://www.ksl.com/article/46693779/church-presiding-bishop...

https://www.ksl.com/article/46692221/church-responds-to-alle...

And my own notes (a simple site): http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854587333.html (or more broadly: http://lukecall.net/e-9223372036854605861.html ).

Working to curtail the civil rights of LGBT Californians was unloving and discourteous. Working to exclude LGBT and nonreligious people from the Boy Scouts was unloving and discourteous.

Civil rights groups endorsed the Utah compromise because it was the best bill that could passed in Utah at the time. They don't consider it a model for the rest of the country.[1]

[1] https://thinkprogress.org/utah-bill-would-ban-lgbt-discrimin...

Thanks for your comment. In case it's useful to anyone, this outlines the Church's beliefs on the importance and nature of the family (not intended to be "against", so to speak, anyone): https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/family-home...

...and one with related quotes/comments on specifics, following it: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/eternal-mar...

(A big factor is that we don't feel authorized to change the commandments, which we believe come from God, our Father.)

> but if they were true then they were news

I don't think that's a complete definition of what's "news." Imagine if Trump died tomorrow and the NYT posted an obituary saying "Donald Trump, the real-estate developer who built a successful resort in Florida but struggled to keep a casino in Atlantic City alive, died at age 73 in Washington, DC, where he was traveling for work." Nothing in this sentence is untrue, but it would be fair to criticize it. (And it wouldn't be fair to say "Republicans are criticizing it because they don't like hearing that he wasn't that successful in real estate.")

The job of a journalist is to say what's important for people to know. This story is alleging that the NYT obituary for Monson did not successfully focus on the most important things, not simply that it told things that weren't favorable. (That said, another comment here fro 'lalaland1125 argues that, in fact, the LDS Church's attitudes towards women and towards same-sex marriage had an influence on America and the world beyond anything that Monson did within his religion, and so the NYT did focus on the important things, which I think is a fair counterpoint. But that's different from saying that the obituary is fine simply because it's true.)

If you look at the original obituary, it seems most of the negative stuff is at the beginning of the article, with the positive stuff left for later on in the article. Monson did a lot of things that most would agree are "good" that impacted many inside and outside the church, yet we don't get any of that until the last half of the article, and many of the things covered in the first few paragraphs only affect members of the church, and thus aren't particularly notable for those outside the church. Also, many of the things in the article relate to activities of the church that don't really have anything to do with the life of the person in question. For example, did Monson have anything to do with polygamy? Yet coverage of polygamy was multiple paragraphs, with the relevant portion being Monson's efforts to increase transparency of church history. If anything, polygamy should be a casual mention here.

The author of this piece isn't saying the article should or shouldn't have mentioned something for fairness, the author is arguing that the obituary was lazy at best or intentionally negative at worst. I expect journalists to be able to learn enough about a subject to give a fair report that covers multiple important viewpoints and to stay on topic, yet this obituary felt like it shoehorned negativity where it didn't really belong, almost like the author had a bone to pick, but tried to stay somewhat objective. Events should be given emphasis to the degree that they are relevant to the subject matter and hand, and I felt this article didn't do a good job at that.

I'm getting tired of trying to figure out when a journalist actually knows enough about a subject to make reading their articles worthwhile. In this case it's fairly unimportant (the man is dead afterall), but it leaves me wondering if they're going to do the same thing on other topics, like Trump's impeachment or election news. Why should I subscribe to a news source that doesn't actually dig in to the subjects it covers?

Exactly, I'm surprised this post is even being upvoted here on HN. It sounds like NYT did their job, and did it well (considering so many people got pissed off).

We can not tolerate tiptoeing around subjects simply because someone's "faith" might be offended.

You don’t have to tip-toe around a sensitive subject in order to give the reader a meaningful look at what’s going on. The article does a good job listing information that was important to help understand Monson in context. You can do that and also address the issues the obituary talked about. But judging everything in terms of a narrow set of political issues doesn’t educate the reader. It’s not good journalism. (I’d love to read the New York Times obituary of the founder of Bangladesh. I wonder what it would be like, viewed through the narrow political lens of a liberal New Yorker. Would it lead with his views on abortion?)

I had the same knee jerk reaction as you. But I think the question is not “should we tiptoe around subjects”.

The question is about framing and notability.

Pretend you have to make your own headline about the life of this guy. How do you frame his life?

You could focus on his achievements and his significance to Mormons and not mention the controversy until later in the article.

You could do what the Times did, which is mention only his controversies and say nothing of his significance to your average Mormon.

You could do a mix of the two (“celebrated within the Church, but mired in controversy without it”).

Either way you go, you are making a big decision on how to frame this guy’s life.

Which one is more fair? Which one is more profitable? Which panders the most to your readership? Which one is the least/most controversial? These are all questions the editor has to consider.

I have no small amount of distaste for the Mormon Church and Mormonism. I would prefer that any headline about Monson’s death mention the controversies that the Times mentions. But I also agree with the author that the Times’ headline is an extremely one dimensional view that just reinforced my already former opinion about Mormonism rather than giving me an alternative perspective from which to see it.

So, you can judge the quality of journalism based on how many people it pisses off?

It's not what's "the most attention grabbing tidbit" -- that's what tabloids do. It's ideological. As the piece says:

> [The journalist] forced events and personalities into a narrow, pre-conceived frame that bore little relation to the reality before him

Same thing as the NYT publishing an article about how the space program was about white supremacy. Same thing as the Times' 1619 project, which alleged that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the colonies.

Being a journalist is hard. Too many journalists seem to believe that "it's impossible to be apolitical" or "if you aren't working to dismantle the system, you're part of the problem" or even "no facts, only interpretations". These perspectives aren't necessarily wrong, but you can't be a good journalist if you've internalized them.

> Same thing as the NYT publishing an article about how the space program was about white supremacy. Same thing as the Times' 1619 project, which alleged that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the colonies.

Do you disagree with these claims because you think they're factually wrong, or because you don't like them ideologically?

There's two arguments here, 1. whether the claims are factual and 2. whether the Times is "forcing events and personalities into a narrow, pre-conceived frame that bore little relation to the reality before him".

My post focused on 2.

I don't think that you can force much of anything into a frame that bears little relation to reality if the thing you're forcing is, in fact, reality.

It is certainly reasonable to criticize a journalist or journalistic organization for only pursuing stories of a particular ideological bent, but it's quite different to accuse them of pursuing incorrect stories. If you mean to only do the former, then I misinterpreted what you meant.

>These perspectives aren't necessarily wrong, but you can't be a good journalist if you've internalized them.

In what way can both of those things hold? If the perspectives aren't wrong, what bearing do they have on good journalism?

Good journalists have to believe in objective truth and the possibility of impartiality. There may be no such thing as objective truth or impartiality. If that's the case, then these things are delusions that are required for good journalism.

What benefit do those ideas have to journalism, and what more makes them required?

I don't see what positive impact they would have on me as a reader.

> Same thing as the Times' 1619 project, which alleged that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery in the colonies.

The Atlantic conveys a much more nuanced take on that in this very interesting piece[1]. It certainly seems plausible to me that part of the southern involvement in the Revolution was driven by that motive.

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/historians...

Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. There's a discussion to be had that stays on the right side of the flame line; let's have that.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21875566 and marked it off-topic.

Those "articles" were published in the opinion and lifestyle sections, not the news sections, and were not considered journalistic pieces.

But I suppose when someone has an ideological axe to grind they don't care about finer points like that.

I think there's a pattern here that's quite clear, in all parts of the paper. This article is certainly interesting: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/14/media/new-york-times-criticis...

One Times employee is quoted:

> the desire to "show and not tell" might be "well intentioned," but it is ineffective. "It puts a burden on readers and especially those who are maybe less savvy," the staffer explained. "And when the stakes are so high and so many people feel personally threatened and there's real danger in the air, the show don't tell approach feels inadequate."

Anyway, it's interesting to me that I have ideology in common with the author of this article. We couldn't have more different backgrounds.

The lesson is that readers don't distinguish between the news and opinion sections. The visual differences are extremely subtle, even more than paid search results.

There is an irony in a member of a church that had famously attempted to cover up all of the atrocities committed by its leadership, even going so far as buying forged documents it feared would expose the church to scorn — a church that goes after its critics in a way unrivaled by any other group, except perhaps the Catholic Church (and even then, pretty sure LDS has it beat), is complaining about an obituary in a secular paper not focusing on the party line, which in this case was “we were able to recruit a bunch of people to join Amway, er, the Mormon church” (that comparison is intentional), isn’t up to his standards.

Also, anyone who doesn’t think that this obituary is completely ordinary for publications like the Times is mistaken.

The obituary for John Paul the II saved the criticism for the end, granted, but look at the obituary for Cardinal Law [1]. And if anyone thinks that when Benedict dies (the Pope emeritus), the obit won’t lead with his controversies, I think they are wrong. It’s too soon to say what they’d lead with on Pope Francis, but I’m sure his controversies with the conservative parts of the church will be mentioned.

Journalists aren’t your friends. And the role isn’t to write propaganda, which is exactly what this guy wants from an obituary.

I’m sure the Deseret News was much more to his liking.

And that’s the other part of journalism. When it thrives, there isn’t just one source. There are many different perspectives that can be shared.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/obituaries/cardinal-berna...

Taken to an extreme, would you rather an obituary of Hitler not focus on a certain narrative as Nazi Germany numbered 100 million people and there certainly was more to their world than hating Jews?

Not this, please. The internet can't handle it.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21876278.

If I'm understanding correctly I would like an obituary of Hitler to be comprehensive - because with a broader context we could perhaps understand how he rose to power. Or understand how a politician can be so charismatic that the people ignore the deaths of their neighbors.

The NYT article _is_ comprehensive, covering most of what the blogger says it lacked. Which is probably why he did not actually link to it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/obituaries/thomas-monson-...

An obituary that seems to have more journalistic integrity than the one the author objects to:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/mormon-...

Flagging for classic whataboutism and whining that the NYT does not serve as a mouthpiece of the LDS.

> Will the New York Times ever tell this story—the story of a people, of a faith, of a life that has changed millions through decisions small and large made over the last sixty years? They will not.

Please keep reflexive tropes like "whataboutism" off this site. They don't add information and count as name-calling in the sense that we use the term here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. See also the bit about shallow dismissals.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

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