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Comment by Etheryte | Hacker News Reader

> Joachim himself declined to provide his last name or workplace because his employer does not want to be associated with the campaign. POLITICO has verified his identity. Joachim said his employer has no commercial interest in the legislation, and he alone paid the costs associated with running the website.

This type of approach from the journalist always confuses me. Why would his employer matter? What does that have to do with anything?

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Because astroturfing is a real thing and because finding hidden loyalties is frequently a good indicator that the source has been lying.

Even before journalism was under a sustained assault from the right, clarifying potential conflicts of interest was fairly standard practice. Now, I see journalists more frequently bending over backwards to (futilely) preempt criticism.

I'm ususally not for both sides but in this case it would have been fair if the Politico Author had contrasted that with the ownership background of his own employer.

You read the article right? Would you say that it was written in an unbiased manor? Let's be honest, it was a poorly written piece of propaganda masquerading as journalism. Criticizing that isn't a "sustained assault". Its also quite clear that the left is no longer liberal in any way. Because liberals would oppose this type of censorship

Writing from a point of view only further necessitates due diligence, assuming the author wants to be convincing.

The alternative would be ultra-dry, wire-style reporting, That does exist because there's some demand from the left and center for that kind of journalism. Though I see little demand on the rights for just-the-facts reporting.

Funny, I see rating dropping for the networks which engage in the kind of propaganda masquerading as journalism that you claim has demand. What you don't seem to understand is that only worked because of the credibility that decades of just-the-facts reporting built up. Now that that is gone, so are the ratings. And doing more hit pieces doesn't reverse that. What would reverse that is just-the-facts reporting which builds up credibility. Also, on YouTube, the channels with the largest consistent viewership are often the ones that try to be unbiased, not your yellow journalism.

Because there is a difference in optics between a guy doing something and a company (with likely much larger resources) doing the same thing.

A person speaking up is cool. A company speaking up is lobbying.

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